


I will eat your flesh

by CreeperEyes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Dark Richonne, Dark Rick Grimes, F/F, F/M, Face-Fucking, Group Sex, M/M, Rape, Rick's group are the bad guys, Role Reversal, Sexual Assault, Vomiting, and they are really really bad, eyeball eating, insane Rick Grimes, vomit eating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:37:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreeperEyes/pseuds/CreeperEyes
Summary: The dead have been walking for three years, and food supplies are running critically low. When Negan and his people learn of a supposedly well stocked community called Alexandria, they raid it for food.They get caught, and the Alexandrians are anything but friendly. Lead by the savage Rick Grimes, the Alexandrians are a ruthless, insane bunch with a penchant for violence. But that's not all.Rick's people are hungry too, and Negan and his Saviors are on the menu.





	1. This Sorrowful Life

**Author's Note:**

> There is MAJOR canon divergence here. First of all, the zombie apocalypse has been going for three years, not two. In this fic, everything after the first Richonne scene is non canon. Negan never meets Rick or even discovers Alexandria's whereabouts until now. (But don't worry, Richonne is still a thing.)
> 
> You know how Rick goes kind of crazy after Lori's death in season 3? Here, Rick stays crazy and never really heals. Crazy Rick, badass Carol, 'Clear' Morgan, hotheaded Daryl, etc. They are bad, bad people in this story. After dealing with the Governor, the Claimers, Terminus and the Wolves, Rick and his people just snap and become savages. They took desperate measures in times of dire need, and it changed them in horrible ways.
> 
> Just to be clear, I love all these characters. I just really wanted to write a story where Rick was the main villain and where Negan drops his hot shit tough guy attitude and is just a guy trying to survive an awful situation.

Negan stared forlornly at the pitiful bounty in front of him. He looked up and frowned. The offering was unsatisfactory. It wasn’t enough. Simon, Dwight, Arat and Gavin were sitting with him at the table and they looked just as upset as he did.

“This is it? This is all you found?” Negan asked.

“I’m sorry Negan. We didn’t find anything else. I searched every square inch of those buildings, there was nothing.” Dwight explained. It had been quite a while since he had eaten anything substantial, and it was starting to become quite noticeable. He’d always been on the thin side, but now, coupled with his plaid shirt and long blonde hair, he was beginning to resemble a drug addled grunge kid.  
The other lieutenants were noticeably losing weight as well. Gavin had to fasten his belt on the innermost hole, and his clothes hung loosely from his frame. Arat, who had been curvy and ample bosomed before, had dropped from a C cup to what barely qualified as a B cup. Simon didn’t fill out his favorite blue shirt like he used to, and he was also sporting a broken front tooth. Several days ago he’d tried biting into a bone to get at the marrow inside and it hadn’t worked out too well.

Negan himself wasn’t looking quite like his former self either. He’d always been one to keep up on his appearance, and he kept that practice going as best as he could. He kept his hair nice and combed back, took care of his leather jacket and made sure to bathe often. Despite his efforts though, he was noticeably thinner than he was before. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a satisfying meal.

Negan sighed. “I’m not angry with you, Dwight. I was just...just hoping there would be more. What are going to do with this? It’s not enough to feed even one of us.”

Sitting on the table before them was one jar of pickled okra that only had a few pieces left in it, a tin of canned sardines that expired in 1997, and one packet of horseradish.

“I don’t want to give up, but I’m starting to feel like there’s no point in trying anymore,” Dwight continued. “We go out further on each run and always come back with nothing. It doesn’t matter how far we go, everything’s been picked clean. It just feels hopeless, you know?”

Negan messaged his temples and thought about how it had come to this. He’d always known the good days would eventually come to an end, but he never imagined it would get this bad.

The dead had been walking for three years now, and every day there were more of them. Everyday someone who died rose again as one of them.

At first, Negan and his people lived like royalty. Settled up in their converted factory turned sanctuary, they had a good thing going. The two nearby communities, Hilltop and the Kingdom, paid their dues by giving them a weekly delivery of food and supplies. In exchange, the Saviors left them alone and let them live in relative peace.  
Negan and his people never had to worry about starving, as there was always enough food for him, all his Saviors, and all of the workers. In addition to the weekly collections from the nearby communities, some of the workers who had farming experience grew crops behind the sanctuary. They grew corn, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, peas and other produce. Fruit was harder to access, but they sometimes got apples, oranges and pears from the Kingdom. They got meat and eggs from the chickens that the farmers raised. Other animals such as deer, rabbits and ducks were hunted by the group’s most skilled trackers.  
All in all, life was grand. At least, as grand as living in a post apocalyptic world filled with the undead could be. Sure, Negan occasionally had to bash in a head or two, but that was merely to eliminate threats and keep things in order. He ruled over the sanctuary, and his people literally bowed before him. He was their savior. He took them in, fed them, gave them a job and a bed to sleep in. Without him, they’d all be out there, fighting against the undead just at the chance to survive one more day. He had saved all of them, every single one. And that made him feel great. It made him feel like he was worth something.

Slowly, things began to spiral downwards as time wore on. No matter how many walkers the lookouts killed, more would shuffle out of the surrounding woods every day. Their blood contaminated the soil, and many of the crops withered and died shortly after being planted. It soon got to the point where the soil was so infertile that absolutely nothing would grow save for inedible weeds, and the land surrounding the sanctuary turned brown and couldn’t produce crops no matter what method the farmers tried. The chickens all died over a span of several weeks, and most of the wild animals populating the forest were killed and eaten by walkers.

Hilltop and the Kingdom had similar issues. Their crops were dying, and they were finding less and less with each run they went on. Food was running low everywhere. Before long, they were coming up short on every offering. Negan had been furious at first and he’d had to use Lucille a few times, but he quickly caught on to the fact that it wasn’t going to change and had sit downs with the leaders of the two communities.  
Gregory, the leader of the Hilltop, was a cowardly, slimy fuckweasel, and Negan had wanted to obliterate his head into nothing immediately after meeting the man. The fact that Gregory had been dealing with Simon for two years and somehow hadn’t been murdered by him was mind blowing. Negan refrained from killing the pathetic failure of a leader, but only because a young man who called himself ‘Jesus’ of all things talked him out of it. Negan had, of course, made quips about eating his body and asking him to turn water into wine.  
The Kingdom’s leader was an eccentric fellow who went by the name of King Ezekiel, and Negan surprisingly liked the man. Ezekiel was theatric and had his people pretending they lived in a fantasy world, but he was intelligent and far more competent than Gregory was. He didn’t scare easily either despite his calm demeanor. He knew Negan was serious about the deliveries, but he also knew he couldn’t feed all of his people if he gave into the Savior’s full demands. Eventually, he and Negan agreed that the Kingdom would supply what they could afford to give up but couldn’t be severely reprimanded if they came up short, as neither one of them wanted to start a war or lose more people.

That worked for a few months, but there were some weeks where the two communities hadn’t been able to offer anything at all. Food supplies started running thin at the sanctuary, and Negan had to enforce strict rationing rules for everybody, himself included. He and his four highest ranking Saviors got two meals a day, while everyone else got one and a small snack. It wasn’t enough to satisfy anybody, but it was enough to live on.  
The shit truly hit the fan when the already sparse food supply had to be rationed even further. There was no longer enough for everyone to eat every day, and it caused chaos. People began stealing and fighting each other, occasionally to the death, just for a meager amount of food. On one particularly bad day, Negan witnessed a man brutally beat another man to death with a bedpost over a package of stale Twinkies.

Starvation ran rampant through the sanctuary, and many of the workers had died of malnourishment. The sick and the elderly were the first to drop, but soon healthy men, women and children started keeling over as well. There were less mouths to feed, but it didn’t help, and it placed an insane amount of stress on the workers who were still alive. Workers who pulled double or triple shifts while getting little to no food didn’t fare well and often collapsed from fatigue. To combat this, the Saviors began sharing duties with the workers. Even Negan himself worked the floor. He washed clothes, took inventory and helped maintain the sanctuary among other tasks. A true leader helped out in any way he could during times of need, and that’s what he was. That’s what he told himself when he got up every morning.

As the food drought stretched on, tempers flared and people’s sanity deteriorated. Workers killed each other, Saviors killed each other, Saviors killed workers, and workers killed Saviors, but only when Negan wasn’t looking. It was always over food or due to insanity from hunger and bleak conditions. People were desperate and they were willing to do almost anything just for a small amount of food.Trying to discipline them and keep them in line was like trying to control feral animals. In a way, that’s what some of them had become. They wouldn’t listen, not even to their leader, and things only continued to get worse.

 

*****************************************************************

 

Negan never thought any of his Saviors would rebel against him, but the day eventually came. He and Simon were helping some workers wash and fold laundry when an older worker, a quiet, hardworking man named Larry, cracked open a can of tuna. That can of tuna was his one allotted meal for the next two days.

One of the nearby Saviors, a former banker named Chad, reacted immediately. Chad had always been one of the more troublesome Saviors. He had a reputation of being a hothead, wasn’t very good at his job and there had been some incidents in the past that resulted in him getting disciplined by Negan. He was one of those guys who, despite his terrible work ethic, thought he was entitled to being promoted to a lieutenant.

“What the fuck?! Why does that asshole get to eat?” Chad demanded. He thought he was ‘above’ the workers and that his survival was more important, even though he did far more standing around and watching than helping.

“I don’t see you helping, you worthless prick. Larry there has been folding laundry all day. You know, actually working. People who work hard get good shit. People who lazily sit on their fat asses do not. So yes, Larry is fucking entitled to that can of tuna.” Negan shot back at him.

A look of repugnance crossed Chad’s unattractive features, then he whipped around, drew his gun and aimed it at Larry’s head.

“Give it up, numbnuts!”

Larry, who was unarmed, hesitantly offered the tuna to Chad, who ripped it out of his hands.

“Whoa, hold on one motherfucking minute!” Negan interjected, dropping the linen he held. “That does NOT belong to you. Give it back to him.”

Chad snorted. “Oh yeah? Fucking make me. What are you going to do if I don’t?”

“You know what I’ll do.” Negan threatened darkly. Before, a mere threat from Negan was enough to set a misbehaving subordinate straight. Unfortunately, his words had no effect on Chad. He wasn’t scared or intimidated in the slightest.

“Really? Where’s your bat Negan? It’s going to be kind of hard to bash my head in without it, don’t you think? You strut around here talking your shit and thinking your dick is so much bigger than everyone else’s like you’re fucking invincible!” Chad got up close and personal as he leaned into Negan’s space. “Let me tell you something, dipshit. _You aren’t._ Without your precious baseball bat, you’re just a guy. You’re nothing. I could kill you right now. And you know what? I think I will! I can lead this place better than you ever could.”

Chad pointed the barrel of his gun right between Negan’s eyes. As much as Negan momentarily regretted leaving Lucille upstairs, he wasn’t worried. He would walk away from this altercation alive with his head intact, he was sure of it. He was kicking himself for not bringing a gun, but he’d be just fine. At least, that’s what he told himself. Surely someone would come to his aide. There’s no way he, a respected community leader, was going to get gunned down by one of his own men. He wouldn’t die like that....right?

A fleeting moment of panic coursed through him when Chad tightened his grip on the gun, but he didn’t let it show. This wasn’t the first time someone had pulled a gun on him and it surely wouldn’t be the last, but it felt different this time, like his life might actually be taken. Despite this, he stayed calm and even managed a chuckle. 

“Chad, you’ve done a lot of dumb shit , but that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your life.” Negan spoke with confidence.

“No, it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. See you in hell Negan!” Chad retorted.

Just as he was about to fire, Simon unholstered his own gun and with one well aimed shot, blew a hole in Chad’s head. The bullet entered through his left eye, rupturing it, and decimated the back of his head. Blood and brain fragments splattered against the wall as his body hit the ground. 

“Thank you, Simon.” Negan stated.

“Any time, boss,” Simon calmly replied and went back to folding laundry like nothing ever happened.

Larry pried the can of tuna out of the dead asshole’s hands and kicked the corpse for good measure. The tuna got tainted with blood and dirt during the scuffle but he contently ate it anyways. It wasn’t like he had any other options.

Negan tried to clear his head as he folded a faded floral sheet into quadrants. His overactive mind wouldn’t let that happen, and he got overwhelmed with thoughts, most of which were negative. He had made the sanctuary what it was, he oversaw the trading and organization with other communities, and most of all, he had built an economy. The fact that he had fallen off his high horse was unfathomable and he didn’t want to accept it, but the truth was staring him right in the face. As Chad the douche canoe had just demonstrated, Negan was rapidly losing control over his people. They no longer accepted his orders and his threats were met with laughter or indifference. Everyone was looking out for themselves with little regard for others, and they’d fuck over their comrades in a heartbeat if it meant survival.

Negan was a cocky, overly confidant and sometimes vain person, but not even he could keep up his tough guy act forever. As much as it pained him to admit it, everyday it became clearer that he wasn’t in charge of _shit_ anymore.


	2. No Sanctuary

The food crisis had officially reached red alert level. Each person at the sanctuary, himself included, was now only allowed one ration every two days. The small amount of remaining food was kept under lock and key around the clock by heavily armed guards, and anyone who tried to steal was shot on sight. When someone wanted their food, they had to present themselves to the guards, who would hand them an item of their choosing and have them write down their name, the date, and what they were given.

Negan and his top people didn’t go down to the vault like everyone else did. Instead, the guards brought food to them, but they still had to record it like all the others.

The reason for this was primarily a safety precaution. Though Negan had been unaware of it at the time, most of his Saviors were self serving, acted in their own interests, and never gave two fucks about him in the first place. Those very people were the ones holding the power now, and Negan knew it. The only ones who still respected him were Simon, Dwight, Gavin and Arat, as well as a couple others like Laura and Fat Joey.  
Negan’s lieutenants stuck together all the time and made a point to always be packing heat because the lower ranking Saviors openly mocked, harassed and were hateful towards them out of jealousy. Several attempts on their lives had been made, and Negan had dealt with the perpetrators accordingly. Just yesterday, a bitter, jealous low ranking Savior tried to shoot Gavin, and Negan responded by letting the fucker meet Lucille.

Negan himself had a target on his head as well, and the bottom tier Saviors made sure he didn’t forget it. He was ridiculed by them (what are you going to do, Lucille ALL of us? The assholes would say) and had been shot at a few times, but thankfully he had faster reflexes. The first time he’d made the mistake of having a low ranking Savior be a food vault guard, he got served a turd on a shiny gold plate and was told that was his dinner. He wouldn’t stand for being insulted like that, and from that moment on he only allowed mid and higher tier Saviors to guard the food vault.

If Negan died, then Simon would take over. If he died, Dwight would be the new leader, then Arat, then Gavin. But if all five of them were dead, there wouldn’t be any high ranking Saviors left and the animalistic lunatics that once followed Negan’s orders could completely take over the place. Thus, the five of them stayed out of sight most of the time.

Negan didn’t like killing his own people. He really, truly didn’t. But what else was he supposed to do when they threatened him and shot at him? The whole sanctuary was a complete shit show and it got worse every day. Most of his people didn’t want to be a community. They didn’t want to save. It was only a matter of time before the bottom bitch Saviors rebelled completely and lynched him in front of everyone.

The thought was so absurd it made Negan laugh dryly, but there wasn’t any humor behind it.

He leaned out his bedroom window, taking in the bleak landscape, a half smoked cigarette in his hand. He hadn’t smoked in a long time, but recently he’d picked up the habit again due to stress.

The scene before him was anything but picturesque. A drab grey sky looked down on the barren ground and long idle vehicles that decorated the yard. Rows of walkers in varying states of decomposition were still strung up on the chainlink fences, but there were no prisoners controlling them. The yard contained no signs of life, only the undead and what had been forgotten. Beyond the fence, walkers milled about in the distance, and every once in a while a gun shot rang out and one of them would drop.

Hunger pangs coursed through Negan’s stomach. He’d eaten his one allowed meal, an old package of rock hard Starburst candy, yesterday and he cursed himself for eating the whole thing. Why hadn’t he saved any? Even one or two pieces. He needed something, anything...

In desperation, Negan had frantically searched his room for a non typical item he could eat. If it was edible, it was going in his mouth and that was that. Paper and a bar of pine scented soap, it turns out, were not edible. The soap tasted so bad he just spit it out and didn’t even try to swallow it. He actually ate some of the paper, but it wasn’t pleasant. It cut his tongue and scratched up his throat when he swallowed it. Since he already ate his allotted tri-weekly meal, he’d be turned down if he tried to bribe the guards into giving him more. He’d settle for a rotting animal carcass at this point. There had to be something else, _something_ he wasn’t thinking of.....

A fast pounding knock on his door roused him from his morose thoughts. When he opened it, he was greeted by his top people, and they looked...happy?

That couldn’t be right. They had nothing to smile about. Arat, who was stoic the vast majority of the time, looked exited and when Negan saw that even Gavin, a chronically mopey sourpuss, was smiling he knew something was up and his curiosity was fully piqued.

“What the fuck are you smiling about?” he asked.

“Food! We found food! Lots of it!” Arat blurted out.

Negan blinked. “Wait, what?”

Simon beamed and unfurled a large atlas, which he laid out on Negan’s desk. “You heard the lady. We struck gold! I am talking a warehouse full of food, just waiting for us to drop by and take it!”

“You’re not shitting me, are you? Because I am NOT in the mood for that.”

“No bullshit, Negan. This is real.” Dwight explained and pointed to an area on the map that was circled red. “This is the warehouse. When we were out scavenging earlier, we saw a car in the distance and followed it. They didn’t see us. We tailed them to this warehouse. Two men got out of the car with some bags. They were armed, but they’d have been no match for us. I got close enough to hear some of what they were saying, and you’re going to love it. They’ve got a community! I don’t know how we never knew about them before, but we’ve got their location now.”

“A community? Shit, I think I’ll have to swing by and introduce myself, just like old times!” Negan grinned. His mood did a 180 and he was already concocting plans in his head.

“Alexandria. That’s the place,” Gavin chimed in. “The two men we saw got back in the car and we tracked them to their community. It’s surrounded by walls, but I got a good vantage point from an old church about a mile outside it. The people there are well fed, well dressed, live in nice homes and walk around like it’s a fucking suburban shopping center!”

“They’re weak, Negan. They need us to save them.” Arat added. “I don’t know how these people have survived as long as they have. I didn’t even see any guards.”

Negan was genuinely smiling now. He leaned against the desk and praised his people. “Color me intrigued! Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

“You’re damn right we are! They’ve got food, but they need us to protect them. We protect them, they give us food. It’s a win win!” Simon said enthusiastically.

“We wouldn’t even need to bring many people. I’m willing to bet you that harsh words is all it’ll take with this crowd. We’ll just lay out the rules and they’ll follow because they’ll be so scared. They give us food in exchange for protection and correction.” Dwight suggested.

Negan couldn’t control his excitement. He grabbed Lucille and giddily swung at an imaginary target a few times. “Yes! Fuck yeah! Goddamn, I fucking LOVE it when you guys grab me by the balls and tell me shit like that! I could kiss all four of you! Fuck it, I’m going to!”

Nobody objected when Negan moved in for a kiss. He have each lieutenant a big kiss on the mouth, but they all laughed about it. For the first time in aeons, they all felt good, like there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

“That is why you four are the BEST. You’re my top people for a reason. I don’t know what I’d do without you. What I DO know is that we have a community in dire need of saving, and saving people is what we do!” Negan dramatically gestured with Lucille.

“We’ll take three trucks. Three teams. Most of those assholes down there don’t deserve what we’re going to give them, but I know Laura and Fat Joey are still on our side. I’ll round up everyone who still stands with us and we’ll load up. If it goes well, we can move out in half an hour.” Gavin said.

“You know, I’d been having a real shit day. I tried eating a bar of soap. Can you believe that? Then I get news that you found a goldmine of food _and_ a community begging for us to save them? That makes me rock fucking hard! We are back, baby!” Negan was so pumped up he couldn’t stand still. He was practically bouncing off the walls from excitement.

He propped Lucille over his shoulder and sauntered out of his room, ready to make a big first impression on this weak community. Since so many of his own people turned out to be such disappointments, he was going to try and convert people from this new place. If they accepted his leadership and followed the rules, he could build a new army. Some of the grunt Saviors glared at him as he sashayed by, whistling a tune to himself and with a bounce in his step, but he gave no fucks.

Nothing could destroy the natural high he was feeling.

 

***********************************************************

“This is the place,” Dwight said as he brought the truck to a stop.

Negan gazed ahead at the run down looking building looming several hundred yards in front of them. He wouldn’t exactly call it a warehouse, but it was big enough, and if it contained as much food as Dwight said it did, it would be more than enough to feed everyone for weeks.

Dwight radioed to their lookouts. “Alex, Travis, we’re in position. Go ahead and do a quick sweep to see if anyone’s home. Give us the signal if anything looks suspicious.”

A minute later, a voice replied. 

“ _All clear. Nobody’s here_.”

Negan didn’t wait a second longer. He kicked open the passenger side door, leapt from the truck and bolted towards the warehouse in a full sprint. He practically busted down the front door, and what he saw nearly made him cry tears of joy.

Food. There was food everywhere. Boxes upon boxes of prepackaged meals, crates of fruit, bags of grains. He saw apples, oranges, cherries, strawberries, blueberries, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, beets and potatoes. Loaves of bread lined a shelf, and there were even several pies. A cooler contained eggs and milk. Various types of smoked meats hung from hooks. It was truly a majestic sight to behold.

Taking in the beautiful scene, Negan was salivating more than a bloodhound. He zoomed over to the shelves, plucked an apple and lavishly bit into it.

The crisp, satisfying crunch was music to his ears and the taste was earth shatteringly amazing. He wasn’t sure if mouth orgasms were possible, but what he was experiencing couldn’t be called anything else. It was as if that apple had been picked and polished by God, and hand delivered to him by Jesus. That’s how great it tasted to him.

He devoured the apple in seconds, then stuffed his face with a breadstick. The bread was bland, but to him it was amazing. To him, it was the best bread he’d ever eaten in his life. A smoked sausage was the next thing going into his mouth, and he chomped it down in three bites. It wasn’t enough. He needed more.

Beside him, his fellow Saviors were busy stuffing their faces with everything and anything in reach, but they weren’t sated. They’d all gone so long without a proper, fulfilling meal that any semblance of manners was tossed out the window. They ate like dogs, and food was ripped to shreds as it was savagely devoured. No one offered to share with one another, but that was alright since there was more than enough to feed all of them many times over.

Negan inhaled a bunch of blueberries, swallowed a piece of one of the pies, and tore into a head of broccoli despite the fact that he didn’t even like broccoli. He’d sit here and eat all day if he could. The thought of stopping didn’t even occur to him.

“We should probably give the guards something. We never told them they could come in. They’re still standing out there.” Arat spoke up as she crammed another piece of pie in her mouth.

“Shit, you’re right.” Negan mused. He was holding an orange in each hand, but he was able to part with them. He couldn’t have his guards starving to death. He had been so ravenous with hunger that he’d forgotten about them.

It took a a fair amount of effort for Negan to haul himself up from the floor. He grabbed several more oranges and headed out the front door.

“You guys have to try these oranges. They are SO fucking-”

“Hands up, shitcock!”

Negan froze in his tracks when he felt the cold metallic barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.

“Turn around, _slowly_ , and face me. Then get on your knees.”

Knowing the unseen intruder wouldn’t last long with his lieutenants around, Negan decided to humor the man and turned around.

Standing in front of him was a tall, imposing and muscular man with bright red hair and a handlebar mustache. He was clad in a white tank top and camo pants. The gun in his hand was aimed right at Negan’s head. Laying a few yards behind the man were the corpses of his two guards. Their necks had been broken and twisted almost all the way around.

“I broke their necks with my bare hands.” the man said proudly. “Now get down on the ground.”

Negan just stared, and for once he couldn’t find any words. A bad feeling swept over him. He had never met this man before, but somehow he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sweet talk his way out of this one. He wanted to call out for his people, but something was telling him they were currently unable to come to his aid. If he wanted to walk away alive, he’d have to comply with the man’s orders.

Apparently he didn’t comply fast enough, because the man became even more agitated.

“Are you deaf or just stupid?” he barked. He shook his head then motioned to someone. “Glenn, want to knock some sense into this retard?”

The butt of a gun collided with the back of Negan’s head, staggering him. He turned around just in time to be greeted by a fist crashing into his face. The oranges dropped from Negan’s hands and rolled away as he was knocked flat on his back.

Another man stepped into view. This one was significantly younger than the redhead, probably by a good twenty years. He was of Asian decent, toting a shotgun, and Negan got the impression that he knew how to use it.

The redhead kicked Negan in the side, which knocked the wind out of him. “That’s for stealing my oranges, asswipe. Those were MY fucking oranges! Mine!”

“You don’t have to be so rough with me,” Negan groaned. 

“Yeah, we do. You think we’re bad? We’re just tenderizing you a little, but Rick is going to fuck you up good.” the younger man threatened. “Abe, throw him in the truck.”

“Who the fuck is Rick?” Negan questioned. 

“You’ll find out. Now get up. Move!” the redhead put the barrel of his gun to Negan’s head again and forced him to walk.

Negan was escorted to a small convoy of trucks that had definitely not been there before. More armed people were raiding the three trucks he and his Saviors arrived in, and Negan felt rage course through him when he saw one of them had swiped Lucille and was using her to torment Fat Joey.

Negan was unceremoniously thrown into the back of the closest truck. His people had guns pressed to their heads, and they were all tossed in with him. The last guy to throw his captive in slammed the doors and bolted them shut, plunging them into darkness.

His mind raced as he heard the truck start up and begin moving. Fear wasn’t something he felt all that often, but he was starting to worry a little. He hadn’t been expecting a fucking ambush, but there was a way out of this. He wasn’t dying today.

He kicked the wall behind the cab. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, assholes! You’re going to regret fucking with me! When I get out of here, you’re all going to meet Lucille! Then I’ll-”

Negan was cut off mid tirade as the driver slammed on the breaks, which knocked him down on his ass.

“Guess that means they can hear us,” Dwight muttered.

“Of course they can. And they took all our weapons. They’ve got us right where they want us.” Laura spoke up from somewhere in the darkness.

“We’re not giving up that easy. We’re Saviors! We’re the best and the strongest. That’s why we always come up on top.” Negan motivated his group, but deep down inside he doubted his words. Their current situation was very bad, and odds were greatly stacked against them. They had been stripped of their weapons and their assailants outnumbered them at least two to one.

“I think I severely underestimated these people.” Gavin stated the obvious to himself.

The ride was pitch black, bumpy and nerve wracking, but it ended surprisingly soon. The truck came to a halt and the back doors were thrown open. The assailants- the Alexandrians, Negan presumed- jumped into the back of the van with their guns drawn. Each one grabbed a Savior and roughly threw them down onto the ground outside.

“For fuck’s sake...” Negan wasn’t even on his feet yet before he once again had a gun to his head.

“You talk too much. Keep running your mouth like that and I’ll put a bullet through it, understand?” the young Asian man pressed his gun harder against Negan’s head.

The Alexandrians forced the Saviors to form a single file line and marched them towards the community’s border. The walls were made of interlocking sheets of metal and looked fairly sturdy, but there was no barbed wire spiraled over the top. If Negan was swift, he could probably climb the wall when he got the chance.

As he was lead inside the gate, a faded, beat up sign on the wall caught his attention.

_Alexandria safe zone_  
_All are welcome_

Negan almost laughed at the bitter irony, but he didn’t want to risk further angering his captors.

Inside the gate, things were almost surreal. It was like the zombie apocalypse never happened. Pleasant looking people were sipping lemonade and chatting on their porches, not even batting an eye as the hostages were paraded down the streets. An older woman with short, slightly grey hair looked up at Negan for a split second, then went back to tending her garden. Nobody seemed to care about the hostage situation. 

Was this...normal? Was this an everyday occurrence?

Negan had a million questions, but he didn’t get to ask them.

“That’s far enough.” someone barked out. The line stopped in front of a nice white house with a decent yard.

A young woman with green eyes and shoulder length brown hair approached the group. She was holding a pen and a clipboard.

“Form two lines! Men on the right, women on the left! Now!” she commanded sternly.

The group separated as ordered, and from the corner of his eye, Negan saw Sherry’s eyes go wide with panic as she was separated from Dwight.

“Get down on the ground! Kneel!” the woman shouted at them.

A small tingle of fear crept up Negan’s spine. Something about this was very off. Sure, he’d done some shady shit, but there was a very macabre tone about this despite the bright, gleaming sunlight and people planting flowers. Something awful lurked beneath the friendly looking surface.

“Thank you, Maggie. I’ll take it from here.” a new voice sliced through the air, catching Negan’s attention.

Three figures stepped off the porch of the white house.

In the center was a man who sent waves of both attraction and fear coursing through Negan. He was tall and lean, but carried himself in an imposing fashion that oozed authority. Slightly curly, slicked back hair framed his handsome face. His piercing blue eyes weren’t friendly-they were cold and cruel. The colt python strapped to his hip added a couple more notches to the intimidation scale. Negan didn’t even need to be told that this was Rick, he put it together in a millisecond.

He remembered the threat from earlier. 

_Rick is going to fuck you up good._

To Rick’s right was a teenage boy, around fifteen or sixteen. He had long, wavy brown hair and wore a black eyepatch. His one remaining eye was just like Rick’s, impossibly blue but ice cold and unfeeling. The odd placement of a sheriff’s hat completed the kid’s look. A gun equipped with a silencer was strapped to his waist.

The tall, well built black woman by Rick’s left was presumably his wife or girlfriend. She had long deadlocks and her dark eyes burned with hostility. Unlike the other two, she wasn’t carrying a gun. Instead, she made her preference for melee weapons known by unsheathing her katana.

More people approached from all sides, and it dawned on Negan that he was surrounded.

All the people who had been idly chatting over lemonade mere minutes ago now clustered around his group, hovering and intently watching like hungry vultures waiting for their prey to die.

Negan squirmed. He felt dozens of pairs of eyes on him and it was making him uncomfortable. Why were they staring at him like that? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t _normal._

A bald, middle aged black man wielding a long, sharp stick was looking at Gavin with malice. Just staring. Gavin made a point to look away, but the man continued to stare right into him. His brow furrowed and he said something to himself.

The katana wielding woman slowly yet gracefully paced in front of the hostages. She looked at Negan with interest before moving on. The teenage boy, meanwhile, acted as the group’s all seeing eye. His gaze swept over the whole crowd, and Negan felt the kid’s one eye burn into him.

The man Negan presumed to be Rick stepped forward and looked over his crowd of hostages. His expression was neutral.

“Which one of you is Negan? And don’t give me that, ‘We’re all Negan’ bullshit. Don’t even try it. Whichever one of you is the leader, raise your hand. Slowly.” Rick commanded.

There was no point in hiding it. Negan raised his hand.

The man strutted over and stood tall over him. Negan suddenly felt very small and defenseless, but he wasn’t about to let it show. He had to keep his cool.

“I’ve heard a lot about you and your people. The Saviors, huh? You threaten people into following your orders and punish those who disobey. It’s a bit of a misleading name, don’t you think?”

“We save people. That’s what the sanctuary is for! I gave all those people a place to live.” Negan said.

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.” the one eyed kid shot at him.

“Let’s get to know each other a little better, shall we? I know you’re Negan. That leather jacket you’re wearing should have been a dead giveaway. My name is Rick Grimes, and this is Alexandria. It’s nice, isn’t it? We’re a community here. We’re a family. My boy Carl and I have been with some of these people since the very beginning. Like Glenn and Morgan over there.” Rick motioned to the young Asian American and the deranged looking man with the stick. “They were the first people I met when I woke up from that coma. We’ve grown together, built together, survived together. They’re a part of my family now, and I’d do anything to keep them safe.”

Rick squatted down in front of Negan and brought their faces uncomfortably close. “Do you have anyone like that? Of all your people, which ones are you closest to? Which ones do you trust with your life? Point them out to me, one by one, and _do not lie_. Lie to me and someone dies.”

The samurai woman stared right into Negan’s eyes and made a slicing motion across her throat.

Negan sighed and obeyed. He pointed to Simon, who was kneeling beside him, to Dwight a couple places down, to Arat kneeling with the women, and to Gavin on the edge of the row.

Rick nodded. “Very good. Simon, Dwight, Arat and Gavin. That’s four.”

Negan swallowed the lump of anticipation in his throat and tried to look as aggressive and pissed off as he could. How the hell had Rick known that?!

“What the fuck?! How did you know their names?!”

“I’ve got my sources.” Rick shrugged.

“If you know so much about us, how come we’ve never heard of you? Why didn’t you do anything before?” Simon snarled at him.

“Because we didn’t need to. We knew that at some point, you would come to us.” Rick replied ominously.

“How?” Negan asked, dumbfounded. 

“Cause I’ve been watching you, that’s how.” a long haired man brandishing a crossbow spoke up. “I’ve seen your sanctuary. I’ve been inside it.”

“Daryl’s been keeping tabs on you people for almost a year.” Rick informed.

“That’s not possible, we have guards everywhere.” Negan said flatly.

“No one sees me unless I want them to.” Daryl told him.

Negan was suddenly hyper aware that someone was standing right behind him. It wasn’t just him either. The huge ring of people surrounding his group drew closer, and each one of his people had an armed Alexandrian right behind them. Whoever was behind him was stroking him, running their hand up and down his arms, across his chest and brushing against his neck. What would normally be comforting actions had nonconsensual undertones and it made him shudder.

Rick roughly handled Negan and glared at him. His beautiful but ice cold blue eyes bore into Negan’s widened brown ones.

“I don’t appreciate you and your people eating our food like that. We don’t like people who steal, but I get why you did it. You were hungry. Starving. Desperate. The thing is.....”

Rick gripped Negan by the hair, leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

“We’re hungry too.”

“You have a warehouse full of food...” Negan trailed off.

Rick laughed and smiled sadistically. He looked absolutely deranged. 

“I’m not hungry for fruit and bread, Negan.”

Negan swallowed nervously and looked away. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Rick.

“What I’m hungry for....”

Rick put his hands around Negan’s throat and tilted his head up, forcing their eyes to meet.

“Is _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to get much, much worse from here. I feel there needs to be a story featuring cannibal Rick, so I am here to deliver.


	3. Pretty Much Dead Already

_What I’m hungry for is you._

A wave of nausea washed over Negan as he processed Rick’s words. He wanted to eat him? What kind of sadistic psychopath was this man?

“Let me get this straight...you want to eat me? You’ve got a big warehouse of food, but you want to eat me and my people? Why?” Negan asked with disbelief. 

Rick’s eyes gleamed with malice and he gave him a creepy smile. His canines were a little too sharp, and he had a few too many teeth in his mouth.

 _That’s not right,_ Negan thought to himself. _Too many teeth._

Rick didn’t answer. Instead, the samurai woman crouched down beside Negan.

“We didn’t choose cannibalism. It chose us.” she began. “I had my doubts at first. I was like you. Desperate and willing to do anything for a meal. So I did what I had to do. But right after that first bite, I felt better. Stronger. Like nothing could tear me down. From then on, I was hooked and needed more.”

She moved in closer. “And you,” she licked Negan’s face, tasting him, “Are going to taste real good.”

Negan tilted his head away from her. Whoever was stroking him moved and leaned over his left shoulder to look down at him. It was a young Latina woman wearing a green hat and fingerless gloves. Her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was beautiful, she could have easily been a model, but Negan was repulsed by her touch. Like the others, her intentions were definitely of the non consensual variety.

Rick licked the other side of Negan’s face. “That’s right. I can’t wait to try you.” He licked his lips slowly. 

Rick and the two women hovering over him stared at him in a predatory fashion. A tongue that was a little too long snaked out of Rick’s mouth and ran over Negan’s face again. Negan cringed and looked away, but immediately wished he hadn’t. Daryl gave him that same predatory look as he absentmindedly played with the trigger of his crossbow. Negan’s heart nearly skipped a beat as he realized that _everyone_ was giving him that creepy, malicious stare.

The Alexandrians were like a feral pack of wolves surrounding a wounded deer, and Negan was the deer.

An older woman with short, greying hair-the same one who had stared at Negan from her garden earlier- stepped forwards from the crowd and stood above him. She looked like a suburban stay at home mom who bought all her clothes from L.L Bean, but the huge knife fixed to the waist of her pants sent the message that she wasn’t one to be trifled with.

“Hi. I’m Carol.” she said in a pleasant voice. “I’m not going to kill you. But what I will do is strip the flesh from your dead body, cut you into pieces and bake you at 375 degrees for two hours. I think you would pair nicely with a side of cornbread and sweet potatoes.”

Negan had no words. He did everything in his power to keep his cool, because he had an image to maintain. He was the leader, he had to stay strong for his people. However, the fear that was nagging at him only intensified. Rick seemed like a guy that couldn’t be reasoned with, and his people were all just as crazy as he was. As much as Negan tried to reassure himself that he could get out of this, he was starting to doubt it. He might not get to go home. He might be dying today after all.

“Now that you know your purpose, we’re going to have a little fun.” Rick beamed. “You stole from us, and you would have stolen a lot more if we hadn’t caught you. We aren’t going to let that shit slide. Punishment is in order, and you fucked with the wrong people. Michonne, I can tell you’re itching for a kill. Go ahead, take one out. Anyone but Negan. He’s _mine._ ”

Negan bristled at the way Rick said that last word. Was he going to..No. He couldn’t even think about that.

Michonne, katana in hand, stalked over to the women’s line and stood before a trembling petite brunette girl. The girl looked up at her with terrified, tear streaked eyes but Michonne had made her choice.

With one clean slice, the katana cut through the girl’s neck. Blood sprayed all over Arat’s face as the young woman’s head tumbled off her body and rolled to a stop several feet away.

Laura let out a loud, strangled sob. The dead girl, Katie, had been her best friend at the sanctuary.

Negan’s mouth went dry and he couldn’t look away from Katie’s headless corpse. Her blood spread out, soaking into the knees of the woman kneeling next to her body.

There was movement to Negan’s left. The man with the long wooden stick was circling around Gavin again and giving him that same hateful stare, just boring into his eyes.

“You don’t clear.” he said slowly.

“What?! What are you talking about?” Gavin asked frantically.

The man, never taking his gaze off Gavin, addressed Rick. “This one doesn’t clear, Rick.”

Rick shrugged. “Do what ever you want, Morgan. If he doesn’t clear with you, he doesn’t clear with me.”

Morgan advanced on Gavin, who looked absolutely terrified.

“You don’t clear.” he said again.

“What the hell you you mean? I don’t clear? What does that mean?! What the fuck does that mean?!” Gavin asked in a panic.

“YOU. DON’T. CLEAR!” Morgan shouted and drove the sharp end of his stick right through Gavin’s gut.

Gavin blinked in surprise and looked down at the blood soaked stick skewered through his torso. It took a few seconds for the pain to hit, then he howled in agony and tried to pry it out.

Negan watched with horror as Morgan forcefully tore the stick out of his lieutenant, taking a section of his intestines with it. He felt so powerless.

Blood poured from the wound, and the entire front of Gavin’s shirt was stained red. He picked up the slimy, jiggly loop of his intestine and stared at it in disbelief as he held it in his hand, examining it deliriously. He was still alive, but was rapidly losing blood and would only be amongst the living for another minute at most.

Morgan wasn’t going to let him live that long. He drew back his arm and in one fluid movement, drove his stick straight into Gavin’s mouth and out the back of his head. Blood, gore and spinal fragments coated the end of Morgan’s stick as Gavin went silent.

He slumped forwards, but the stick impaled through his head kept him partially upright. Dark blood flowed down the stick from the dead man’s mouth and pooled on the ground. 

Fat Joey, who was kneeling next to Gavin, almost fainted from terror. 

Most of Negan’s people were in anguish. Some were crying, some were pleading, some were praying and others were pretending they were somewhere else. 

The big redhead man, assault rifle perched over his shoulder, paced up and down the line in search of someone to torment. He stopped in front of Simon and smirked.

“Nice ‘stache you got there. Not as good as mine, but still pretty good. Tell me something friend, why aren’t you scared? Your buddies are all quaking in their boots. Even your supposedly fearless leader looks like he’s going to start crying like a little bitch. Not you though. You should be shitting your pants right now, but you aren’t. Why is that?”

“I don’t know, should I be?” Simon challenged.

Negan mentally panicked. _He’s going to get himself killed!_

Redhead roughly grabbed Simon by the neck and turned his head from side to side, like he was checking for something. Simon cringed. He in fact was scared, but he’d rather die than have the other man know it and exploit it.

“I wonder...what’s it going to take to break you? I don’t know, but by the hairs on my nutsack I’m going to find out. You’ve piqued my interest.” Red said with a growl.

“Good, I’d really hate to disappoint you.” Simon retorted. 

“Simon, shut up! You’re going to get yourself killed!” Negan blurted out.

Simon cast Negan a sideways glance, then looked forward just in time to see redhead drive his big ass hunting knife straight through his left leg. Blood spurted out as the man twisted the knife, and he relished the sound of Simon crying out in pain as the blade cut through the muscles in his leg.

“If you keep squirming like that, I’ll hit your femoral artery.” the man warned. 

Simon gripped the bloodied handle of the knife and started yanking it out, only for the big man to send his huge fist crashing into his face, knocking him on his back.

“Keep it in!” he shouted and shoved a finger into the wound to inflict more pain. “Talking back to us is not allowed. From now on, you’ll be silent unless you are directly spoken to. If I hear one fucking peep out of you, you’re losing an eye. Understand?” 

Simon grimaced and nodded.

A familiar sound permeated the area and made everyone look up. It was the sound of a certain wooden baseball bat being tapped against the concrete.

There, in Rick’s hand, was Lucille.

Negan snarled with rage. That motherfucker had Lucille! He wanted to lunge at Rick and viciously tear him to pieces for what he’d done, but he knew he couldn’t. He was unarmed. If he made any moves, there would be a bullet in his head before he could get off the ground. His only choice was to sit placidly and wait for his punishment.

Rick cockily leaned against Lucille while deliberately making eye contact with Negan.

“Does this bother you? Me fondling your lady like this?”

Instead of waiting for an answer, Rick swung Lucille around slowly, testing her weight. He gave her a couple of hard swings next.

“I can see why this is your weapon of choice. Nice weight, swings well, easy to handle. And I bet she makes one hell of a mess! How many times do you hit someone with this bad girl? Does she kill with one shot, or does it take multiple hits? You could probably reduce someone’s head to nothing with this! Can I test that theory on one of your men? What was that, Negan? I can? Well, that’s awfully kind of you!” Rick paraded up and down the line as he swung at people.

He looked like a kid in a candy store stalking up and down the lines. He did a few fake outs and was obviously enjoying himself. It made Negan question his own methods. When he Lucilled someone he didn’t enjoy it _that_ much, did he?

“But who should I kill? That quivering pussy over there? The blubbering fat guy? The crying blonde girl? Should I be a real dick and take out your right hand man? I just can’t decide! Carl, want to help your old man out?”

Carl scanned the crowd, debating. Finally, he pointed to Dwight.

“How about him?”

Rick sauntered over to the kneeling man and stood above him. He held the bat high above his head with both hands. Dwight went rigid and screwed his eyes shut as he braced himself for the hit. Rick brought the bat down, but stopped an inch from the man’s head.

“You....didn’t kill me?” Dwight gaped. He was too stunned to feel any relief.

Rick grinned and turned back to Negan.

“So Negan,” he began and propped himself with Lucille once more. Negan twitched. How _dare_ he disrespect her like that!

“We’ve killed one of your lieutenants and injured another. If I bashed in Dwighty boy’s head with good old Lucille here, I bet you wouldn’t like that, would you?” Rick taunted.

“No Rick, I wouldn’t.” Negan stared straight into Rick’s eyes as he spoke.

“What if I said I’d spare his life in exchange for a little something? I’m feeling generous today. Michonne and Morgan, not so much. But you’ve been very cooperative with me. If I asked you to do something to save your friend’s life, would you do it?”

Negan took his time answering. This had to be some kind of psychological test, and he searched Rick’s face for clues. If he said the wrong thing, Rick would kill Dwight. On the off chance that he said the right thing, Rick would likely kill Dwight anyways.

“Of course I would. He’s one of my best men.”

That creepy, overly toothy smile broke across Rick’s face again. 

“Good, I’ll keep that in mind later when I’m fucking you. But for now, I want you to do something else.”

Negan shuddered and another nausea wave pulsed through him. Rick was going to _rape_ him? He felt sick. He didn’t want that. Anything but that.

Rick and Carl exchanged some words, but Negan tuned them out. He couldn’t focus on them. He felt sicker as his fate was spelled out before him. He and his people were going to be raped, murdered and eaten. At least Gavin and Katie were already dead. They weren’t going to be held down against their will, degraded, violated and pumped full of cum.

They got off easy. For everyone else, the horror was only beginning.

“Eyes up here Negan.” Rick commanded. 

Negan obeyed and he hated himself for it.

Carl was holding a big container of some sort of brownish red slop.

“What is that?” Negan asked uneasily. 

“The parts we don’t eat. Assholes, toenails, earlobes, that kind of stuff.” Carl said matter of factly. There was a bright gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there before.

He lifted the bucket and showed its contents to Negan. It was swimming with a viscous, foul smelling liquid with chunks and strands of unidentifiable substances floating in it. 

Negan stared at it with a repulsed expression and his nausea hitched up a notch.

“Eat that.” Rick instructed and produced an old plastic funnel.

As much as he didn’t want to go anywhere near that stuff, it was Dwight’s life on the line. It was worth the risk and repugnance.

“Keep this down, and Dwighty boy over there just might walk away from this. I’ll kill someone who’s less important. What do you say Negan? Want to give it a go?” Rick asked.

“I don’t actually have a say in this, do I?” Negan asked.

Rick paused for a second as if deeply thinking. “No, you don’t. Open up.”

Two of Rick’s men grabbed Negan and tightly held him in place. He felt his bones almost crack from their iron grip, and there was something unnatural about it. How the hell were they so strong? It didn’t make sense.

Rick placed the funnel in Negan’s mouth, and Carl tipped the container forward. Its putrid contents edged towards the lip of the bucket. It sloppily spilled over and began oozing down the funnel.

Nothing could have prepared Negan for the vile taste. The stuff smelled like rotting flesh on a humid sunny day, and tasted like the foulest rot mixed with the rankest diarrhea possible. The coagulated clots in it made him gag and he almost puked the second it hit his tongue. An old decayed fingernail scraped the back of his throat and he retched noisily. He felt incredibly nauseous.

“Keep it down, Negan. Do it for Dwight. You know what’ll happen if you fail. You can do that, right?” Rick taunted.

But Negan couldn’t. His stomach lurched and he retched. He tightly clamped a hand over his mouth, but it didn’t matter, he’d already failed. He retched again and his mouth filled with vomit. Dwight was going to die because he couldn’t do what Rick asked of him.

“Oh, he is so going to puke.” Carl mused. “Looks like Dwight’s going to meet Lucille after all.”

Negan managed to swallow it back down with strenuous effort, but that effort was in vain. Two seconds later, he gagged again and a bit of puke slipped through his fingers and ran down his arm.

Rick’s playful expression darkened.

“What a shame, Negan. You failed.”

Negan lost it. He dropped to his hands and knees and violently threw up all over the asphalt. All the fruit, meat and bread he’d gorged himself on less than two hours ago came up and spread across the ground in front of him. Wave after wave of brown liquid poured from his mouth as his stomach contracted. He couldn’t stop. He’d failed.

His throat burned and his eyes watered as more vomit gushed from his mouth. By now he was kneeling in it, but he couldn’t stop until his very full stomach was empty.

Rick patiently waited for Negan to finish puking. He was crouching off to the side and watching intently.

“Looks like you ate a whole hell of a lot of my food.” he said as he observed. “I gave you a chance to potentially save someone’s life and you failed.”

When he was finally empty, Negan dry heaved a couple times. He didn’t want to look up, because he knew he’d see Rick standing over Dwight, ready to bash his head in.

His fear was confirmed as that’s exactly what he saw. Rick, standing there in front of one of his best friends, ready to reduce him to nothing.

“No! Not Dwight! Kill me instead!” Sherry went ballistic with emotion and tried to crawl towards her husband, but a gun bash to the head from Maggie put her back in her place. She stayed put but sobbed hysterically.

Rick extended Lucille towards Dwight. He was taking his time setting up the kill.

Dwight sobbed in sync with Sherry. He wasn’t looking at Rick, instead choosing to spend his final seconds lovingly gazing at his wife.

“Sherry, honey. I love you, so much. I love you so fucking much.” he choked out.

“Isn’t that sweet? True love. Unfortunately, this marriage is over.” Rick said darkly and held Lucille high above his head.

“Dwight...” Sherry rasped and extended her hand.

Dwight motioned to return the gesture, but his action was cut short.

_Crack._

The sickening sound echoed as Dwight’s skull fractured and blood streamed down his face. He twitched spastically. Rick brought Lucille down again with great force, and Dwight didn’t move again.

Negan couldn’t watch. He dry heaved a few more times, then vomited some bile as he was forced to listen to Rick pulverize his friend.

Rick didn’t stop. Gobs of blood flew from Lucille’s barbs as he brought her down again and again.The back of Dwight’s head busted open and his brains were spilling out, yet Rick refused to stop. He smashed the man’s head into oblivion until it was just a grotesque mass of gore riddled with chips of bone.

Negan’s stomach cramped painfully as he retched dryly. Why was Rick taking it so far? Negan had never gone _that_ far.

“Wow! Holy shit! This thing is amazing!” Rick held Lucille up proudly. She was covered in gore and long blonde hairs.

Behind him, Sherry was curled up on the ground, bawling her eyes out.

Negan couldn’t look at any of them. He couldn’t look at Rick, he couldn’t look at what remained of Dwight and he especially couldn’t look at Sherry. He settled for staring down at the lake of his own vomit. This was all his fault. His job was to save and protect his people, and now he couldn’t do it.

He had failed.


	4. No Way Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty much just rape, and there will also be rape in the next chapter. For this one, I went with unusual pairings that I've never seen before.
> 
> Again, I love all these characters. Rick and his group would never actually rape anybody, but they do here because I'm straying quite far from canon.

Time passed slowly. How long had Dwight been dead now? It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but it felt significantly longer.

Negan kept his head down like an obedient slave. Several of his people were dead because of his failures. He couldn’t save them. In their greatest time of need, he had failed them all. How had they ever looked up to him? The words of Chad the douche came drifting back to him.

_“You strut around here talking your shit and thinking your dick is so much bigger than everyone else’s like you’re fucking invincible! Let me tell you something, dipshit. You aren’t. Without your precious baseball bat, you’re just a guy. You’re nothing.”_

Negan knew it was true. He was no majestic leader. He played the part well enough and to his credit he had been on his way to building a real economy at the compound, but deep down he’d always known he wouldn’t stay on the throne forever. Before the apocalypse he’d been an average guy with an average job living in an average house, and that’s still what he was. Just some guy.

A pair of feet entered his peripheral vision. Negan looked up. It was Carl. He looked at Negan hungrily before his gaze trailed downwards.

Carl got down on his hands and knees, and he seemed excessively interested in Negan’s puke. He sniffed it, then a long tongue emerged from his mouth as he started eagerly licking at it. He sat up, roughly gripped Negan’s right hand and began licking the puke from between his fingers. Carl’s tongue wrapped around Negan’s middle finger as he sucked all the acidic substance off it.

Negan grimaced and his upper lip curled in disgust.

“What the fuck, kid?”

“Carl has developed a peculiar taste for vomit. I’m don’t know how or why, but I’m not going to deny my boy something he wants.” Rick addressed Negan. “If he wants to lick you clean, for your sake you better let him.”

Carl straddled Negan and locked his legs around his back. He suggestively licked the vomit off Negan’s leather jacket and from around his mouth until not a single drop remained. He could have stopped there, but he didn’t. Once Negan’s jacket and face were clean, Carl firmly gripped his head with both hands and kissed him aggressively.

Negan went rigid. He had been with men before, but this was absolutely perverse. It was wrong, and not just because of the vomit eating. Carl was underage which made Negan feel dirty even though he was an unwilling participant. He wanted to throw the boy off him, but the gun aimed at the back of his head was an ever present reminder of what would happen if he did. 

Carl’s long snake like tongue forced itself into Negan’s mouth, lapping up the rest of the sour puke remnants and gliding over his teeth. His hands roamed freely. He snuck one hand up Negan’s shirt and slid the other down his pants and into his boxers. The boy made a animalistic moan of pleasure as he simultaneously worked Negan’s cock and rammed his tongue further down his throat, triggering his gag reflex again. Negan gagged but he didn’t have anything left in his stomach to bring up. He was repulsed to feel Carl’s thankfully clothed hard on poking his side, and the smug look on Rick’s face let Negan know that he had no intention of telling him to stop. 

He couldn’t get hard now. No way. He wouldn’t let himself. Carl was, at most, sixteen years old and despite him being a sick cannibal like the rest of the Alexandrians, him being underage made Negan extremely uncomfortable. He didn’t want this.

Negan couldn’t hit Carl. Doing so would result in Rosita putting a bullet through his head, but he desperately wanted the kid off him. He did the only thing he could do without moving and bit down on Carl’s tongue as hard as he could.

Carl yelped and jerked back, blood spilling from his mouth.

The air became heavy with hostility as every single Alexandrian turned to face him in rage. They snarled angrily and tensed up. Carl, who was crouching in front of Negan, started growling at him.

Rick’s eyes burned with quiet fury.

“You just made my son bleed.” he said in a scarily calm voice.

“Your son is underage, Rick.” Negan tried to defend himself. “I wanted him off me.”

Michonne swooped down and leaned down over Negan. “This isn’t about what you want. This is about what we want.” she said cooly. “And I’ve got to say, you and your people are a damn fine looking group.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Negan asked even though he already knew the answer. 

“You are smoking hot,” Rick bit the side of Negan’s neck. “I can’t wait to feel your tight asshole around my cock.”

“I want him too, dad.” Carl spoke up. He gave Negan a crotch squeeze through his jeans.

“Me too,” Michonne smiled creepily as she ogled him.

Rick chuckled almost lightheartedly. “Don’t worry. We’ll share.” For a split second he looked almost normal, like there was a spark of humanity behind those cold eyes. That mere second was enough for Negan to realize that Rick hadn’t been born this way. Something made him this way. Maybe, just maybe, he was reachable.

The spark was gone as soon as it came and dark Rick returned. He squatted beside Negan and leaned in uncomfortably close.

“Hurting us is unacceptable. Hurting my son is a death sentence. You will not go home today Negan. You and your people are going to die inside these walls. That’s the way it has to be. But first, we’re going to have some fun with you. I’m going to fuck you. Michonne is going to fuck you. Carl is going to fuck you. And it won’t be just you. Take a look around and you’ll see the way my people are looking at yours. They’re hungry.”

A shudder ran down down Negan’s spine as he saw the way Rick’s people were eyeing his. Teeth were bared, jaws snapped and long tongues tasted Savior flesh.

“Negan, you signed your death note the second you decided to raid our food storage building, but spilling my son’s blood calls for a much more severe punishment. You’ll get your turn, but for now I will force you to sit there and watch as my people violate yours.”

Rick stood up and nodded at Daryl, who was eyeing Sherry hungrily. 

“Tear them apart! I want to hear them scream!”

The Alexandrians pounced on the Saviors, and Negan looked around in a frenzied panic as they chose their victims.

Daryl grabbed Sherry by the hair and dragged her before tossing her down on her back. She kicked and screamed as he held her down, savagely ripped her dress apart and violently tore her panties off.

“No, stop!” she cried. “Don’t do this! Don’t-” she was cut off as Daryl backhanded her across the face.

“Shut up!” he barked. “There’s no use in crying. Dwight’s dead. I’m your husband now.” 

He pushed into her, not at all caring that he was hurting her. Sherry shut her eyes and sobbed into the concrete as Daryl thrust in and out of her. He was rough, careless and his touch was like poison to her. She cried harder, but her sobs only served to further arouse Daryl. Using his teeth, he marked what was his by biting her breasts and drawing blood.

Arat was the next to be claimed. Tara, the dark haired girl who had been eying her since she was brought in, worked her hands down the woman’s shirt, roughly caressing her breasts and biting her neck.

Arat shuddered and screwed her eyes shut as Tara yanked her shirt off, exposing her. She tried to cover up, but Tara smacked her hands away.

“Aw, come on baby, don’t be like that,” she said and completely ignored her victim’s protests.

“Don’t touch me!”

“What’s the matter? Never been with a girl before?”

“Not with one as ugly as you!” Arat spat at her.

Anger flashed over Tara’s features and she punched Arat in the face, breaking her nose and knocking her down. She crawled over the downed woman and began savagely violating both of her holes with her fingers. Arat thrashed about, but Tara overpowered her with ease and pinned her down. Her fingers alone weren’t doing it for her, so she savagely violated Arat with the cold barrel of her gun. Tara’s finger was on the trigger.

Arat screamed in pain as Tara shoved the gun barrel inside her and forced her open. A small trail of blood trickled down her inner thigh as the gun repeatedly penetrated her.

“Don’t move too much, bitch. My finger might slip.” Tara threatened darkly.

Arat whimpered and went stiff as Tara continued her assault.

One by one, the Saviors were violated by the Alexandrians.

The large redhead, Abraham, approached Simon from behind and grabbed him by the neck once more. “I gave it some thought, and I know just how I want to break you.” he said.

He threw the man to the ground and ripped his pants down before dropping his own. His knife, which was still lodged in Simon’s leg, was plucked out. He brandished it in front of the other man’s face, just millimeters from his right eye.

“Remember what I said. Don’t make a sound.” Abraham commanded. “One motherfucking peep and this is going in your eye.”

Without warning, he thrust his huge thick cock into Simon’s ass and roughly pounded him. Simon tried to stay quiet, but he failed and shouted out in pain as Abraham tore up his asshole.

“You aren’t a very good listener, are you?” Abraham taunted. He extended the knife towards Rosita. “You want to do it babe? I’ve got my hands full.”

Rosita smiled devilishly and gently ran the bloodied knife over her own face before turning it on Simon.

“You have pretty eyes.” she commented. “But you can afford to lose one, can’t you? Left, right, no preference?”

Abraham give Simon an especially hard thrust, making him shout. “Come on, give the lady an answer. She doesn’t have all day.”

Rosita twirled the knife around as she slowly brought it closer and closer to the man’s face.

“Look out, Simon! Here comes the airplane! Where should it land? Left or right? Left or right? Left or right?! Left or-”

Simon screamed in agony as Rosita plunged the knife into his right eye. Blood and pus streamed down his face as the knife twisted around his eye socket, and he almost passed out from the pain as his optical nerve was severed. Rosita yanked the knife out and Simon’s mangled, useless eyeball came with it. She pulled the eye off the knife and carelessly tossed it over her shoulder.

“Not so cocky now, are you?” Abraham goaded. “Man, your ass is tighter than a corset on a fat woman. Is this your first time taking a dick up the pooper? It is, isn’t it?”

Simon didn’t respond. He had both hands pressed to his empty, bloody eye socket in attempt to stop the bleeding. The dick in his ass felt heavenly compared to the pain of losing an eye.

Negan didn’t want to watch anymore, but he couldn’t look away no matter how horrified he was. He tried to tell himself that this was only a dream, and that he was back home at the sanctuary, but the anguished screams of his people made it obvious this nightmare was no dream. His friends were suffering and there was nothing he could do to help.

Fat Joey was bent over on the ground being anally raped by an Alexandrian wielding Morgan’s staff while Morgan himself stood nearby, smiling sadistically.

Laura was being double teamed by two male Alexandrians who were using her as a cum dumpster. Her face was contorted with rage, but she looked very broken.

A young barely legal male Savior was receiving a brutal face fucking from Glenn, and Maggie was riding him. She bent and twisted her body against the direction of her thrusts to bring as much pain to the young man as she could.

And then there was Rick, standing over Negan, Lucille still in his hand. The sun was low in the sky behind him, and it cast a shadow over his face which darkened his features. His eyes seemed to blaze with an otherworldly glow.

Negan’s mind was racing, and an idea suddenly came to him. It was a feeble one, but it was better than nothing. He had once read a book about serial killers and psychopaths, and it had included a section on how to act and what to say if captured by one. If he could somehow make Rick see him and his group as people, not pieces of meat to be fucked and eaten, then he just might have a sliver of a chance. It was worth a shot.

“Rick,” Negan spoke up and got the man’s full attention. “What were you before all this? I..I was a gym teacher. What did you do?”

Rick cocked his head and squinted at him, processing his question. 

“I was a deputy in King county.”

Negan was floored with shock. This sadistic lunatic used to be a _cop?_ He suddenly felt the faintest glimmer of hope.

“You were a cop?”

Rick nodded. “I was. I used to help people. But...that was a long time ago. That’s not who I am anymore. I know what you’re doing, Negan. You want me to see you as a person, not an object. Too bad that reverse psychology shit won’t work on me. But I’ll humor you. I’ll let you ask me one more question. Think hard and make it count.”

Negan’s heart sank. Rick saw right through him. He steeled himself as he prepared to ask the third question. He wasn’t going to like the answer, but he needed to know. He took a deep breath, looked up and gazed right into Rick’s eyes.

“Rick...why do you have so many teeth?”

Rick’s answer came in the form of a psychotic smile which showcased all of his extra teeth and his sharper than normal canines. He bent over, picked up Simon’s soggy eyeball from the ground and held it by the nerve. He dangled it in front of Negan’s face.

“That,” Rick said as he licked the eyeball, “is a secret.”

Rick gently placed the eye in his mouth, iris side out, and held it between his teeth. He smiled at Negan and snapped his jaw shut. An arc of blood shot out as the eye burst like a grape between his teeth. The cornea ruptured and the eye’s clear, jelly like center oozed down Rick’s chin as he noisily chomped on it and crushed it into mush. He swallowed the repugnant mass and licked his face clean.

“Exquisite!” he exclaimed. “I appreciate the appetizer, Simon. I like eyeballs of all colors, but brown eyes taste the best.”

Simon, who was still cradling his face trying to stop his bleeding, didn’t respond but Rick let it slide.

Negan couldn’t even speak. How could one of his fellow humans be this sick? Then again, maybe Rick wasn’t human.

“Do you hear your people screaming, Negan?” Rick asked ominously. 

Negan refused to answer. He wouldn’t willingly give the monster before him what he wanted. He’d do anything to make the continuing rape of his people stop, but there was nothing he could do, no deal he could make. No matter what he said or did, Rick and his people weren’t stop. They were just getting warmed up.

Hands latched onto each of his arms. Carl and Michonne held him tight, and their hard, strangely sharp nails dug into his skin.

“You are beautiful, Negan. I want to taste you.” Rick licked his lips and advanced upon Negan.

He lunged in and took Negan’s face in his hands. He kissed him roughly and bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

He forcefully pushed Negan onto his back, pinned him down and bit his neck, piercing the skin there. Negan’s blood was smeared around Rick’s mouth and his intense blue eyes gleamed with malice.

“Enough watching. It’s your turn.”


	5. Too Far Gone

Negan felt very vulnerable and exposed without his leather jacket. Like Lucille, it was a part of his identity, something he needed.

Seeing Rick wearing his jacket and fondling Lucille made his skin crawl, but he didn’t have much of a fight left in him.

“Look at that. It fits me perfectly. Do I look hot in this jacket or what?” Rick strutted back and forth like he was walking down the runway at a fashion show.

Michonne answered him by playfully smacking his ass. “Damn right you do, baby. You’ll look even hotter fucking the shit out of him.” she motioned to Negan. “You want him, I want him, Carl wants him. He’s a pretty little toy for us to break.”

“I want his mouth, dad,” Carl spoke up.

“Good, because I want his ass.” Rick responded.

Before Negan could even process that statement, six hands darted forwards and grabbed at him, tearing at his clothes. Five eyes bored into him and three sets of sharp teeth gnashed at his flesh. Someone bit his neck again, and he winced in pain as blood was drawn.

Rick pushed Negan onto his back and pinned him down once more, looming over him.

“You fight back and you are _dead_.” he held Lucille uncomfortably close to Negan’s face. A drop of blood fell from one of her barbs and landed in his eye.

Michonne’s eyes shone with predatory lust as her hands danced over the buckle on Negan’s belt. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve got in there?”

Negan didn’t want to, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. The logical part of him wanted to get free of Rick’s grasp, push Michonne away, punch Rick in the face, steal Lucille back and get his revenge. He’d bash in Rick’s head, then Carl’s, the Michonne’s, then anyone else who was stupid enough to get in his way. That’s what he wanted more than anything, yet that part of him got smaller by the minute because he knew it wouldn’t happen. It didn’t matter if he tried to fight back and escape, it wouldn’t get him far and he’d receive a grisly death for disobeying Rick’s order. Even if he complied with every command, his fate would stay the same. He _was_ dying today. He was. Rick wouldn’t let him live, and there was absolutely nothing he could say or do to change the madman’s mind.

There was no point in resisting. He gave up.

He refused to die like a little bitch, begging and pleading for his life. Fuck that. Begging wasn’t an option, and pleading would only make Rick go harder on him.

Negan decided to stop responding. He was still going to suffer through being gang raped, but if he shut himself down maybe it wouldn’t be as traumatic. Though it wasn’t like he’d get experience the joys of PTSD, he’d be dead minutes after Rick was finished with him.

Rick made him stand up. His black pants were torn down and forcefully bunched around his ankles, and the thin fabric of his boxers was the only thing protecting his ass from violation.

“Bend over.”

Negan stared straight ahead, but couldn’t help shuddering as he heard a zipper open and felt Rick’s hard cock firmly press against his thinly veiled ass. The mere protection his underwear offered was torn away as Rick yanked them down. 

He was exposed. He looked right through everybody and tried to pretend he was alone, but he felt the eyes burning into him. Dozens of eyes, all staring at him. Rick’s people looked at him with macabre lust, his own people looked at him with sympathetic horror.

Michonne bit her lower lip and Carl ran his tongue over his teeth. Both of them were poised and ready to pounce on him. Their backs arched and their fingers curled in anticipation as they slowly circled around him.

Negan felt something wet being smeared around his asshole, and he didn’t need to see to know that Rick was using someone’s blood as lube. He could feel the head of Rick’s cock prodding his entrance, and he involuntarily tensed up from anxiety. He was about to be raped. It was surreal, and he didn’t want to believe it.

A cry of pain tore from Negan’s throat as his asshole was ripped open from Rick’s forced entry. Rough hands sporting sharp nails dug into his asscheeks and spread them. Negan gasped as pain radiated up and down his lower body as Rick selfishly started pumping in and out. After several thrusts, Rick clamped his hands around Negan’s chest, pulled him backwards and kept him held down in a flatter version of the reverse cowgirl position, firmly pressed against him. He locked his legs around the other man’s thighs to keep him down and resumed fucking him. Rick growled as he savagely pounded his captive’s ass over and over from his position on the ground.

Negan’s hole was burning from the friction of being repeatedly penetrated, but the pain was beginning to give way to something worse: pleasure. A perverse feeling of arousal began to course through him, and he was horrified to see that he was starting to get hard.

_No. No no no no no. This is not happening. This is NOT fucking happening. Don’t you fucking dare._

His body refused to cooperate with his brain, and his lengthening hard on got stiffer every time Rick thrust deep inside of him. He felt disgusting and hated himself for feeling the slightest tinge of pleasure. He was being _raped_ for fuck’s sake! He didn’t like this, he didn’t want it and the sounds of his people being sexually violated plagued his ears, yet he was getting hard.

“What a cock hungry slut. He likes it!” Carl leered.

“Show me how much you like it, Negan.” Michonne commanded.

She undid her belt, slid her pants off and crouched over Negan. She unceremoniously slammed herself down on his dick and began to ride him. She carelessly thrust hard against him and timed it perfectly so both she and Rick thrust Negan in opposite directions at the same time. Her hands roamed his flesh, but it wasn’t a gentle caress. Her sharp nails scratched at his skin as she explored every inch of him.

“Look at you, my pretty little fucktoy.” Michonne mused out loud as she stroked the side of Negan’s face.

Negan would rather stick his dick in sulfuric acid than fuck her, but Rick had him held tight in his iron grip, so Michonne had free reign to use him however she pleased. She abstractly bent and twisted as she rode him, bringing pleasure to herself but pain to him.

Michonne reached down and aggressively squeezed his balls.

Negan’s eyes went wide and pricked with tears as searing pain shot through his crotch, though no sound came out when he opened his mouth.

“Shout all you want, Negan. No one’s going to help you.” Rick panted and continued to shove himself balls deep into Negan’s raw, bleeding asshole.

Carl stood over Negan with a smug, dirty look on his face. From Negan’s position on the ground, sandwiched between Rick and Michonne, Carl looked far taller than he really was.

“Open your mouth.” the boy commanded as he fondled himself through his pants.

He unzipped his pants and whipped it out, rock hard and ready to go.

“Negan, open your mouth.”

Negan refused.

“Fine. Then we’ll open it for you.”

Rick grabbed Negan by the jaw and forcibly opened his mouth, allowing Carl entry.

Carl snared Negan by the hair and jammed his hard length into his hot, wet mouth.

_Bite him, Negan. Bite that fucker’s dick right off._

But Negan didn’t. He couldn’t. Rick would kill him in an instant. All he could do was lay there and take it as Carl rammed his dick down Negan’s throat over and over. He gagged and choked as his eyes watered from the force of it. 

“That’s it, take it! Take it all!” Carl facefucked Negan until he was gasping for air.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t speak and he couldn’t move. He felt humiliated, defeated, degraded, worthless and violated. To these people, he was nothing but a faceless piece of meat to be fucked and eaten. Just an object to be used, abused and casually discarded.

Negan had done some bad shit, some of which he had no regrets about, but he had never done anything like this. He didn’t deserve to be sodamized like this, nor did his people.

 _Nobody_ deserved this.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

_Crack._

Simon cringed as the man kneeling next to him met Lucille. The bat came down again and again, crushing the man’s head into the concrete.

Rick was done playing games. He and his people had their fun, now it was time to take out the trash. He annihilated several of the Saviors before announcing that he was willing to share.

“Who else wants a go?”

He passed Lucille on to his people. Maggie took a life and handed Lucille to Glenn, who bashed a man’s head into nothing before pawning it off to Michonne. 

Each time Lucille found a new bearer, Simon mentally braced himself for the hit he knew was coming. He hoped that whoever took him out was strong enough to get the job done with one good hit, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t be that lucky. 

He wondered who would get the honor of killing him. He thought that Rosita would choose him to die for sure, but when Lucille was in her hands she surprisingly chose Laura instead. His second guess was Rick himself, as Rick seemed to sense that he was close with Negan. If not him, possibly Morgan. He seemed like to type to get extra perverse pleasure out of it. Or maybe it would be Carol, the seemingly sweet but secretly vicious housewife, who would get to enjoy taking his life.

Daryl wielded Lucille now. He sauntered over to Simon and gave him that same constipated squint he’d been giving everyone all day.

It was settled then. He’d meet his death by Daryl’s hand. As painful as it would be, at least he wouldn’t live long enough to see Negan suffer the same fate. It was inevitable. Negan himself would die a brutal and morbidly ironic death. His head would be caved in with his own weapon until there was nothing left of him. 

Simon refused to think about that. Instead, he spent what would surely be his last few seconds alive to wish an agonizing death on every single one of those motherfuckers. He smiled to himself as he fantasized about forcing Rick down on his knees, taunting him, threatening him, breaking him and savagely smashing his face in with Lucille, over and over and over. He wouldn’t stop there though. He’d smash Rick’s hands, feet and knees. He’d chop his fucked up corpse into tiny little pieces and feed them to his zombified people. Then he’d finish by torching Alexandria and watching it burn to the ground.

Yes, that was a good thought to go out on. Now he could die.

Except the hit didn’t come. Daryl walked right by him and chose his real target: Fat Joey.

Lucille sailed through the air and smashed the man’s head open with an echoing crack. Fat Joey fell to his side on the ground, convulsing, but Daryl snuffed him out with the second hit. Gobs of gore splattered the concrete as Joey’s head was crushed beyond recognition.

Arat was the next one to meet Lucille. As much as it pained Simon to see his friend get pulverized, he was proud of the way she spent her final moment. Arat spent her last seconds on Earth wisely. She spat in Daryl’s face and screamed, “FUCK YOU!” right before he cracked her head open.

One by one, the rest of the Saviors met their gory death. And yet, Simon was passed over again and again.

 _Why the fuck haven’t they killed me yet?_ he thought to himself.

And then it dawned on him.

Rick wanted it this way. He knew Negan and Simon were close, and that the best way to completely shatter Negan was to brutally kill all of his Saviors in front of him, while saving his best friend for last.

By the time the Saviors were down to five, the street ran red with blood. Small crimson rivers trickled along the pavement, soaking into the clothes of both the living and the dead. Chunks of gore fermented in pools of blood, and the circle of dead Saviors got bigger with each kill. Out of all the victims, Gavin and Katie were the only ones who still had recognizable facial features. The others had an eyeball here, a tooth there and odd clumps of hair, but for the most part their heads had been reduced to a putrid mass of fetid gore.

After what seemed like an eternity, the rest of the victims were all dead, leaving Simon and Negan as the only Saviors left alive.

Negan hadn’t moved since the rape. He was laying on his side, blankly staring ahead. To the untrained eye, he looked dead though he was very much alive. He hadn’t reacted or even looked up when Rick raised Lucille and started the bloodbath.

Lucille was back in Daryl’s hands, and he was ready to bust open one more head before Rick executed Negan.

Daryl quickly walked over to Simon, determined and ready for the kill.

Simon’s remaining eye trailed Lucille as Daryl raised her high above his head.

“I’m going to enjoy this.” Daryl said. He tightened his grip on Lucille and prepared to bring her crashing down on Simon’s head.

Before he got the chance to, he was rudely interrupted. 

“Shit! Walkers! A big herd just breached the wall!” someone called out.

Rick threw his hands up in exasperation. “Are you fucking kidding me?! We just fixed the wall last week!”

The sound of raspy undead moans carried across the air, and when Simon looked over he saw several dozen walkers shuffling down the street towards everybody. He almost burst out laughing because he didn’t think this day could possibly get worse, but it did. It was like life decided to take a huge shit in his gaping, empty eye socket.

Rick prepped his Colt Python, but before taking off to deal with the incoming herd, he took Lucille from Daryl, crouched in front of Negan and cruelly placed her on the ground in front of him.

“Negan, be a saint and guard my girl while I’m gone. I’ll come back for you soon.” he gave Negan a murderous smile, tapped his face and walked off.

“You two,” Michonne pointed at two random Alexandrians with her katana, “watch them. Make sure they don’t try anything.”

The Alexandrians were pissed that their fun was being interrupted, but the walkers needed to be dealt with. The sooner they dispatched the undead the better. Then they could go back to finishing off the Saviors.

“If you’ve got any last words, you better start thinking about them now,” Daryl said to Simon as he unholstered his crossbow. “Fucking walkers, interrupting my kill. What bullshit!”

Daryl angrily stalked off to help deal with the advancing herd, but he failed to notice one of his hunting knives drop to the ground and slide underneath the dead man to Simon’s left.

The two Alexandrians that had stayed behind both had guns, but they were chatting to each other and looking at Negan. No doubt they were talking about wanting to further defile him.

Nobody else was going to defile Negan, Simon would make sure of that. The idea he had was insane and would likely result in his death since he wouldn’t be able to run very fast on his gimpy injured leg, but if it meant that Negan would escape, at least he wouldn’t die for nothing. When he was confident the guards were preoccupied, he slowly, carefully reached out for the knife Daryl dropped. If one of the guards turned around and caught him, he’d be fucked beyond belief, but he couldn’t give up before he started.

Closer....

Closer....

He had it. He gripped the knife in his hand and right as one of the guards turned to face him, he discreetly hid it up his sleeve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I toyed with the idea of making Negan fight back against his rapists, but I thought it would be more interesting for him to completely disassociate himself from what was happening. Nobody ever writes shattered, broken Negan so I'm going to fill that void.


	6. JSS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays, have some festive DESPAIR!

As Negan lay sprawled on the ground, all he could think about was how hopeless he felt. There was no way out, death was coming for him. Rick’s sadistic smiling face would be the last thing he saw when Lucille came crashing down on his head. Being surrounded by the smashed heads of his most trusted people, many of which were his closest friends, only served to further drive that point home. Before long, Negan’s own brains would be ground into the concrete. He would bleed out and his brutalized corpse would be left there like all the others. He pictured Lucille striking his face, splitting it open, and he imagined Rick obliterating his head, bashing it over and over until nothing was left. 

In some fucked up way, maybe it was what he deserved. Bashing in the heads of his enemies was a very cruel way to kill and he knew it. He always tried to tell himself that he ‘had to’ make examples of people who threatened, attacked or betrayed him or his group but bashing in their heads with Lucille was overkill and he had been aware of it from the get go. As brutal as it was, he did have lines he wouldn’t cross: when it came to skull crushing, only men got the special privilege of meeting Lucille. Caving a man’s head in didn’t bother him anymore, but he hated killing women. On the rare cases where he did have to kill a woman, he chose the more humane method of an execution style gun shot to the head. Negan would argue that he wasn’t a monster, but now it was clearer than ever to him just how wrong his leadership style had been. Practically enslaving communities to provide for him and his Saviors wasn’t the right method. The dead rising to roam the earth once more changed everybody, and it changed him for the worse. He’d killed his fair share of people since the world ended, but before the apocalypse he’d never killed or enslaved anybody, and he certainly hadn’t had a cult of loyal followers. He had been so wrong about everything, and now he was going to die for it. His skull would shatter, his eyeballs would burst, his teeth would crack, and his handsome face would rupture and become nothing but a mass of slimy gore.

The two guards loomed over him, talking amongst themselves about how they wanted to give him a good face fucking yet neither one made a move to do so.

Maybe they weren’t allowed to? Perhaps only Rick and his highest ranking people could claim him. It would make sense. He was, as Michonne put it, their fuck toy to use and abuse. If Rick decided to keep him alive, that is.

Negan didn’t want that. He didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being tortured and raped by Rick and his people. If he had to choose between the two, he’d choose death.

A gunshot rang out, but he ignored it. It was probably just Rick taunting him, so he continued to blankly stare ahead and got lost in his thoughts of helplessness. He didn’t even care when he felt someone grab him and start shaking him.

“Negan! Negan, come on! This is our chance! Let’s go!”

Negan looked up and was snapped out of his dazed shock instantly when he realized it was Simon, not Rick, who was crouched over him. He was holding a bloody knife in his left hand, and the gun belonging to one of the guards was clenched in his right. The guards themselves lay dead and bleeding out on the ground behind him. One had a slit throat and the other had been taken out by a headshot. 

Simon yanked Negan to his feet. “We’ve got to go! Now!”

Negan snatched up the gun from the other dead guard, but not before picking up Lucille. Her barbs were coated in the blood of his friends, and holding her felt wrong. And yet, he needed her now more than ever.

They ducked behind a pretty blue house with a well kept garden of colorful blooming flowers in the front. There was no backyard, as one of Alexandria’s walls ran right behind it. So far their escape attempt hadn’t been noticed, but Negan figured Rick would catch him within minutes. There was just no point. Escape was futile and Negan knew that. Rick probably saw him right now.

As he crouched behind the house, Simon placed his hands on Negan’s shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Negan, I need you to listen to me. We’re going to climb the fence and get out. We will. But you need to listen. I’m hurt. If I fall behind, don’t wait for me. Just keep going. Understand?”

Negan nodded, but the thought of losing anyone else made him nearly break down in tears. Everyone he had ever known before the outbreak was dead. His friends, his family, _Lucille._ All his friends and allies that he’d bonded with after the outbreak were dead. Arat, Dwight, Gavin, Regina, Laura, Joey and all the others, they were all dead. Simon was the only person on this god forsaken planet he had left.

He was scaling the fence before he even realized he was moving. In the one twist of luck he’d had today, the wall’s inner framing was easily climbable. It was just like climbing a ladder.

Negan hurtled himself over the fence and ungracefully landed ass first on the ground. Simon dropped down beside him and cursed loudly as he landed on his injured leg. They’d done it. Somehow, by some insane miracle, they’d gotten away from Rick Grimes and his clan of cannibalistic lunatics. Now all they had to do was put many miles between them. 

They darted through the woods, dodging walkers, jumping over rocks and getting smacked in the face by tree branches, but stopping for even a second wasn’t an option. They didn’t have a destination in mind, but in order to survive, they had to get far away from Rick in a very short time. Any place was good as long as it was far from Rick.

Walkers lunged at them from the trees, rotting arms outstretched, but they were too slow. Despite being armed again, neither man stopped to deal with the undead. As long as they kept running and watched where they were going, the walkers posed no real threat to them. A fat walker with half its face missing swiped at Negan, but he dodged it and kept running.

Many minutes ticked by as he sprinted through the woods, and he lost track of time. He was completely exhausted and didn’t know how much longer he could keep going, yet he pressed on. Stopping meant death. Stopping meant that Rick would catch them. He was overheating, his legs and lungs felt like they were on fire, sweat dripped from his burning skin, his bones ached, and the intense pain in his backside served as a constant reminder of the rape he endured just an hour ago. Before he could stop himself, he began to slow down. He simply couldn’t run anymore.

Negan staggered against a tree to try and brace himself, but he crumpled into a heap on the ground. Several large sticks poked at his back, but he couldn’t bring himself to move, and he was too tired to even think. He heard Simon collapse beside him. Every single part of him ached, and he wanted nothing more than to shut his eyes and go to sleep forever.

For a long time they laid there, exhausted, panting heavily and trying to recuperate. Eventually Negan’s labored breathing became less erratic as he began to recover. He was sore all over and his limbs felt like they were made of cast iron, but he’d be able to get up and run again if he had to.

Simon rolled over to face Negan. “I think we made it several miles, but it’s not enough. We need to get moving.”

Wordlessly, Negan pushed himself up and stood on shaky legs. He grabbed Lucille, who he had dropped when he collapsed, and was ready to go.

For the next couple miles, they alternated between walking, jogging and sprinting so they could cover more ground while maintaining a little stamina.

Negan didn’t see a point to it. They didn’t have anywhere to go, and he had an awful sinking feeling that he hadn’t seen the last of Rick Grimes. If they somehow did find a safe place to live, Negan wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He felt like an empty husk of his former self, and he knew that if he ever managed to sleep, Rick’s face would haunt his nightmares forever.

“Negan, look!” Simon pointed to a shabby looking wooden cabin hidden amongst the trees.

It was old and looked like it had been abandoned for a while. The white paint of the cabin’s exterior was peeling off in large flakes. Whoever owned it was likely long dead.

“Maybe we can stay here and rest for a bit.” Simon nudged the creaky wooden front door open and Negan silently followed him inside.

At one time, the cabin’s interior was probably nice and cozy, but now it was cluttered with junk and rooms were in varying states of disarray. It was fully furnished and the kitchen still had all the appliances, but everything was covered in a sheen of grey dust.

They searched the rooms and found things they wanted but didn’t need such as a 50” flat screen TV and a fancy leather recliner, but came up short on food and supplies. Judging by the ransacked drawers and cabinets, someone had looted the place for supplies long before they ever had problems at the sanctuary. There was nary a bullet or tiny morsel of food to be found. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom was bare without any semblance of first aid.

“Hey Negan, can you let me know if you find something small and round?” Simon asked from the living room. “I’ve got to put something in my socket before it gets infected. I mean...unless that’d make it worse.”

Negan ignored his request and slunk into the kitchen. He sat down at the rickety table and blankly stared down at his hands. The blood under his nails was his own. He hadn’t uttered a single word since the rape, and he wondered if he lost the ability to form words or if he was subconsciously choosing not to. Either way, he couldn’t go on like this. He’d escaped, but he was still in the danger zone. Maybe if he made it to the next state over he’d be alright. He tried to stay hopeful, that there was a chance he could make it to a large, safe community far away from Rick, a place where he could start over. But what where the chances? He had no food, no supplies and no transportation. Not only that, he wasn’t the best navigator and had no idea where he was. He was fucked. Best case scenario, he’d spend the rest of his life living in the forest eating bugs, dead animals and tree bark.

“Check this out Negan! This would be good against those undead pricks. Maybe living pricks too.” Simon showed Negan the object he held. It was a 1/2 EMT conduit bender with a heavy black shoe and a blue metal handle.

“We’re going to be just fine. We’ll find a place to live, maybe a little house like this one. Someplace by a lake would be nice.”

Negan tuned him out and continued to glumly stare at the table. He was completely baffled at how Simon could be concerned with such trivial shit right now. In response, he shook his head and looked up at his friend with despair. They were _not_ fine.

Simon frowned at him, placed the bender on the table and leaned forwards so he was at eye level with Negan.

“Who are you?” he asked in a soft but direct tone.

Negan remained silent. He knew what Simon wanted him to say, but it felt wrong. He wasn’t a leader anymore.

“Who are you?” Simon asked again.

“Avery Matthew Lane.” Negan kept his eyes cast down as he spoke. “I’m nobody....I’m just some guy.”

“NO!” Simon snarled and slammed his hands down on the table, making Negan flinch and go rigid. “No! That’s bullshit! I don’t accept that answer! I DO NOT FUCKING ACCEPT THAT! I-”

He abruptly cut himself off when he saw the way Negan was looking at him. Negan was stiff as a board, giving him a wide eyed deer in the headlights stare and looking like he wanted to run away. He looked terrified and defenseless, without an ounce of the confident swagger or sarcastic jokey personality he usually displayed.

Simon held his hands up and took several steps back to show Negan that he meant no harm.

“Shit...I’m sorry, I was just...” he trailed off. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He backed against the refrigerator and let himself slide to the ground before quizzically looking up at Negan.

“Avery, huh? All this time I thought Negan was your real name. How come you never told me?”

Negan shrugged. “I don’t know. My friends started calling me that in college and I just rolled with it.”

“Avery’s a good name. I like it.”

“Me too.”

“...But I’m still going to call you Negan. Because that’s who you are.”

Negan disagreed. He wasn’t shit. Not anymore.

They sat in silence for several minutes. Simon contorted his face in disgust as opaque greenish yellow pus started trickling out of his eye socket. “Fuck...that isn’t good.”

Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, Negan spoke up. “I’m not going to be able to do it....”

“Do what?”

“If you die and turn, I won’t be able to shoot you. If you turn, just fucking eat me. I’ve got nothing! Everyone I’ve ever known is dead. My family, my friends...my wife...The sanctuary was taken over. We can’t go back. I don’t have anything left. You’re it. You’re the only fucking thing I’ve got left. What the fuck will I do if you die? What am I going to do, Simon?”

Simon gazed up at Negan. “Just survive somehow.”

Negan didn’t want to _survive._ He wanted to live, but only if he had something worth living for and after today he wasn’t sure if he did. He was tired of the walkers, tired of being malnourished, tired of losing people, tired of having life shit on him again and again. He was tired of just _surviving._

Starting over would be great, and he tried to believe there was a place where he could spend the rest of his life living in peace, but even if there was such a place, he’d never get to see it. For all he knew, the whole world was populated with people like Rick. Murderers, rapists and cannibals. The short time he’d spent in Alexandria had shown him the lowest, most depraved side of humanity, and he feared that anyone he met would be like them. He didn’t want to spend the next several decades hiding and living in constant fear.

“I want to go home, Simon.” Negan’s voice cracked and his eyes glazed over. “But...we don’t have a home to go back to.”

First one tear fell, then another until he was full blown sobbing. Negan couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He hadn’t even cried when Lucille died, instead coping with her death by bottling everything inside and taking his rage out on any walker unfortunate enough to get in his way. Maybe the fact that she was truly gone had finally sunk in and it took being brutally raped and forced to watch his people get slaughtered for him to accept it. Lucille was gone. His family was gone, his friends were gone, his home was gone. His shoulders jerked as he slumped forwards and cried into the wooden surface of the table. He didn’t care anymore. Rick could be standing in the room with him, mocking him for crying like a baby, and he wouldn’t have given a shit. He just wanted it to end.

Seeing Negan, his best friend and leader, crying was too much for Simon to take so he joined in. He let out a loud sob and his head fell back against the fridge as tears coasted down his face. Ever since their escape he’d desperately tried to keep it together solely for Negan’s sake, but now that Negan had broken down, he dropped the facade and cried with him.

Their thoughts were unanimous. The world was fucked, they were fucked and the thought of opting out seemed better than constantly fighting, running, scavenging for practically nonexistent supplies and only barely scraping by just for the chance to do it all again tomorrow.

There was no point in living if they had nothing to live for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After giving it some thought, I've decided to bump this story up to eight chapters, so there will be two more after this.
> 
> This is kind of a 'bottle episode' chapter with a bunch of angst thrown in. Hopefully it's not too disappointing. I felt the story could use a little break from the rape, death and mayhem hence the rather slow pace here.
> 
> I love my Rick/Negan no matter the context (in fact, Rick/Negan might be my OTP) but I'm seriously thirsting for some Negan/Simon right now and I think that's fairly apparent in this chapter.
> 
> Confession time: I've never read the comics. I don't know if Negan's real name is ever revealed, so I made one up, as I love the idea of him having a super normal name like Avery Matthew Lane. It feels so right for some reason.


	7. The Day Will Come Where You Won't Be

The two of them walked in somber yet comfortable silence until Simon stopped in his tracks and turned to face Negan.

“Ezekiel! Negan, we can go see King Ezekiel!”

“What makes you think he’ll help us? I’ve only met the guy once. And that prick Jared killed one of his guys. A kid.” Negan was skeptical. The only thing Negan hated more than rapists was people who hurt kids, and he’d taken joy in executing Jared for his crime. However, he had a feeling Ezekiel would turn him away due to Jared’s fuck up.

“Gavin liked Ezekiel. Said he was really easy to work with.”

Negan tried not to think about Gavin, but he did and it made him wallow in self guilt. Gavin had been a good guy, and while he and Negan barely had anything in common, the two of them had formed an unlikely friendship. He didn’t deserve to get impaled with extreme prejudice by that lunatic with the sharpened bo staff.

“Ezekiel will help us when we tell him about Alexandria. He’d be insane not to. His people, they’ve got guns, right?” Simon asked. He had never met Ezekiel or been inside the kingdom’s walls, but he’d heard a lot from Gavin, including every detail of the Benjamin incident which had resulted in Jared meeting Lucille. Gavin had never been one to relish violence, but he’d taken immense pleasure in watching Negan Lucille Jared the child killer.

“I don’t know about guns, but Ezekiel has a tiger.” Negan said matter of factly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“A tiger?” Simon’s eye went wide. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“You’ll see for yourself when we get there.” Negan managed the tiniest of all smiles.

How he hadn’t thought of it before was astounding, but now that the idea had been planted in his head he was all for it. King Ezekiel, in all his over the top thespian glory, was the key to their survival, provided he was willing to listen to Negan’s case. His tiger, Shiva, would tear the Alexandrians to shreds and deliver justice. Their screams would be music to Negan’s ears.

And then there was Rick. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but Negan was going to kill him. Brutally. Giving him death by Lucille would be far too kind considering everything he had done to Negan and his people, but he’d make it hurt. He’d crush Rick’s joints one by one before finishing him off by smashing his head into oblivion.

Negan pointed to a road sign that read county road 16.

“This road will take us to the kingdom, but I don’t know how far it is from here.”

The Kingdom wasn’t all that far from the Sanctuary, but he had no idea how far it was from Alexandria.

They decided to stay off the main road for a while and cut through the forest instead in case Rick’s people started patrolling the roads looking for them. Negan couldn’t help but shudder when he thought about Rick blocking off the roads and hunting them down like animals through the woods. It was a likely scenario, which made it more unnerving. He highly doubted Rick would just shrug it off and let them disappear. Negan could only hope that Rick would assume they’d run back to the Sanctuary.

After they walked several more miles, they came across a creek. The water was unfortunately tainted due to half of a walker thrashing around in it several dozen yards downstream, but Negan approached anyways and crouched near the water.

“What are you doing?” Simon asked. “The water’s tainted.”

“Cleansing Lucille.” Negan replied.

He tightly gripped Lucille by the very end of the handle, the only part of her not covered in the blood of his friends, and dipped her below the surface. The water’s current started rinsing away the loose coagulated blood and hunks of gore from her barbs, cleansing her. Negan carefully maneuvered his finger between the spikes of sharp wire and scrubbed at the bits of flesh that had adhered to Lucille’s smooth surface. As he did so, small wisps of red that had once been parts of Dwight, Arat, Joey and all the others, were carried away by the current. He delicately pried away the stubborn bits the water couldn’t remove.

When Lucille was clean, Negan lifted her from the water and carefully examined her to make sure no blood remained. He looked over at Simon, who was standing a few feet away and looking at him morosely. 

“We can go now.” Negan said flatly and got up.

“Negan... back at the cabin, did you think I was going to hurt you?” Simon asked in a serious tone as they started walking again.

“For a second there, yeah. I did.” Negan replied honestly.

“I would never, ever hurt you. I mean it.” The truth hurt a little, but Simon shrugged it off and gently touched Negan’s shoulder. Negan seemed to relax at the contact.

“I know you wouldn’t.”

Simon took his hand off Negan’s shoulder and looked away, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Negan, can I tell you something? I mean, we’re probably going to die anyways so I don’t think there’s any fucking point, but there’s something I’ve got to get off my chest.”

“What is it?”

“I, uh...I think you’re extremely hot and I’ve had a crush on you since the day I met you. I just thought I’d...tell you that. Now. Just...because.” Simon found himself unable to look directly at Negan as he spoke.

Negan blinked. He’d always had a sneaking suspicion that Simon had the hots for him, and having it confirmed somehow lifted his spirits a bit. Despite the scarring trauma he’d been subjected to today, he felt a tiny spark of warmth. It had been so long since he’d felt loved, and he’d do anything to feel that again. Maybe he did have something worth living for.

“How come you never told me this before?” he asked genuinely.

“I didn’t think you’d want me. I’m no Chris Hemsworth, that’s for sure.”

“Looks aren’t everything.”

Before everything went to shit at the sanctuary, Negan had often wondered what Simon was like in the sack, but once the food crisis hit he’d barely thought about sex at all. And after the horrors he’d endured today, the thought of someone else touching him like that made his skin crawl. All he could think about was the poisonous touches of Rick, Michonne, Carl and the other Alexandrians. Sex was the last thing in the world he wanted right now.

And yet, he’d melt like butter if someone showed him loving affection right now and if that person was Simon, he wouldn’t exactly be complaining. Lucille had been his one true love and that would never change, but Negan played for both teams and liked both equally.

“What are you saying?” Simon asked him. He looked hopeful, but like Negan, he couldn’t bare the thought of any kind of sexual contact right now. As much as he wanted to kiss Negan, he’d probably puke down his throat if he did. It would just remind him of what Abraham did to him earlier. Then again, Negan’s touch might be the cure he needed.

“Maybe Ezekiel will take us in and we can have a picnic date in his garden after this is all over. We’ll pass Lucille back and forth and bash Rick’s head in together.” Negan offered.

“I’d like that.”

Simon reassuringly squeezed Negan’s hand, and for the first time since the crisis began, Negan felt the faintest glimmer of happiness.

*****************************************************************************************

Night had fallen by the time they neared the Kingdom. Negan recognized some of the buildings on the street from the one time he’d been here. They were close. Just a few more miles and they’d have safety, even if it was only temporary.

“We’re close, but we’re not safe yet. Those buildings look empty but you never know. We should go through the woods just in case.” Negan spoke up.

Simon nodded. “Lead the way.”

They’d managed to scavenge a few bullets on their journey, but they didn’t have enough and wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs if they could help it. Fortunately they hadn’t come across any other people or seen any signs of the Alexandrians. Rick and his people had probably gone to the sanctuary, which was fine with Negan. The sanctuary wasn’t his home anymore and it never would be again.

As they crept through the trees, it became apparent how deathly quiet it was. Not only were there no moans of walkers, there seemed to be a complete absence of life. No hooting of owls, croaking of frogs or chirping of crickets. The only sound was their footsteps crunching across the damp ground.

“It’s quiet... _too_ quiet.” Simon whispered.

“Yeah...keep your guard up.” Negan said with more confidence than he felt.

Something seemed _off._

He found himself glancing over his shoulder every minute, and he went into high alert every time a branch snapped under his foot. It was probably all in his head, but he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that someone, or something - was watching him from afar.

Lurking in the dark shadows, stalking him for miles, biding its time and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

It couldn’t be Rick. It couldn’t be.

A sudden noise sounded from his left, causing him to whip around wide eyed while holding Lucille in a death grip.

“It’s okay, it’s just me. I tripped over a rock.” Simon assured him.

Negan nodded but couldn’t shake the apprehensive fear he felt. All he had to do was make it one more mile, then he’d be safe and around people who weren’t complete psychopaths. He was going to make it to the Kingdom. He was. No ifs ands or buts about it.

“What’s that?” Simon pointed at something up ahead.

Through the oppressing darkness Negan could barely make out a fluorescent colored rectangular object leaning against a tree.

They walked up to the tree and crouched down to get a better look. 

It was an orange road construction sign with the words BETTER START RUNNING hastily scrawled across it in all capital letters.

Negan’s stomach dropped and creeping dread spread through his chest. This message was for them, except it wasn’t a vague threat. It was a warning. They were being toyed with.

Negan and Simon both froze and looked in horror at each other as the realization hit them.

“I don’t think we’re alone....” Simon said uneasily.

A pang of fear shot up Negan’s spine when he heard a voice that clearly wasn’t Simon’s call out to him.

_“Negan......”_

Negan quickly drew his gun and clenched it so hard he thought he might break it as he swept it over the pitch black landscape.

_“Behind you...”_ a woman’s voice whispered.

_“Over here....”_ a third voice piped up from somewhere in the darkness and Negan shot blindly.

Demented laughter met his ears, and he fired another shot but hit nothing.

Someone darted through the trees several yards away. Simon shot in the direction of the movement but he too missed. Both men panicked and fired blindly until they used up what little ammo they had. Negan squeezed the trigger repeatedly, but the empty gun only clicked at him as his unseen hunters tormented him from the blackness.

Many voices spoke at once, taunting him from the darkness, and he almost shit himself when he heard a familiar voice.

Daryl.

_“Better start running Negan.”_ Daryl’s gruff voice called out.

Negan looked about in a crazed frenzy. He couldn’t see any of the Alexandrians, but they had him surrounded. He couldn’t win this armed only with Lucille.

Somehow they had found them. _He_ had found them.

An Alexandrian suddenly lunged at him from the left.

Reacting instantly, Negan swung Lucille and felt her solidly connect with someone, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out who it was.

Both Negan and Simon sprinted forwards just as someone else pounced from the darkness, just barely missing them. They tore out of the area as fast as they could.

The creepy cackling laughter of the Alexandrians drifted after them and Daryl’s taunting voice sliced through the air again.

_“I’m going to get you Negan...I’m going to get you!”_

They bolted away in a desperate attempt to escape their pursuers, and for a minute it seemed to be working.

Unfortunately they didn’t get far.

A sudden flash of blinding light stopped Negan in his tracks and made him flinch back. He had to shut his eyes for a second, but he didn’t need to see to know he was completely surrounded. The slow, deliberate stalking of many footsteps coupled with the amplifying sound of a motorcycle’s engine told him everything he needed to know.

He slowly opened his eyes to confirm his fear.

He was standing in a large, open clearing surrounded on all sides by armed Alexandrians. They formed a tight circle around their victims, and there seemed to be more of them than before. The bright lights coming from their vehicle’s headlights cast many of them in shadows, which only made them appear more otherworldly. Their faces were hidden by the darkness, but Negan felt rather than saw their predatory gazes fixed upon him. Jaws snapped at him, long tongues ran over sharpened teeth and fingers curled with the anticipation of tearing him to shreds.

Standing in the center of it all was Rick, flanked by Carl on one side and Michonne on the other. He stood tall and imposing, even more so than before. He was clad in a brown jacket and his intense blue eyes shimmered with an iridescent glow. A fiendish grin spread across his face as he greeted his petrified guests. 

“Welcome back. Did you miss me?”

The barrel of a gun was pressed against the back of Negan’s head and Lucille was wrenched from his grip. Negan and Simon were both stripped of their weapons, leaving them completely defenseless against the Alexandrians. Lucille was passed back to Rick, who swung her over his shoulder and marched towards his captives.

“I’m going to need you on your knees. _Now.”_ the smile fell from Rick’s face as he gave the command.

Negan lowered his eyes and let his head fall in defeat as he complied with Rick’s order. This was it. He’d gotten lucky the first time, but now there was no way out. Here he was, less than a mile from safety, only to be recaptured and prepared for his inevitable execution. Everything came full circle, and almost felt surreal. He felt like he was in a dreamlike trance as he knelt down on the ground.

“How’d you find us?” he asked. He knew it was a stupid question but he had to know.

“It was easy. You two ain’t so good at covering your tracks.” Daryl replied.

“You didn’t think we’d let you get away, did you? You can’t be that delusional.” Rick swung Lucille down near Negan but missed on purpose. “I’ve got to give it to you though, I’m impressed. I never thought you’d escape, so you got me there. Well played. I hope you enjoyed that, because it won’t happen again. It ends here.”

Carl and Michonne began circling around the captive pair, gnashing at them menacingly. Many of the other Alexandrians followed suit and prowled around the area. Some slunk about on all fours, others stood still but with arched backs and hunched shoulders, ready to pounce.

“They’re getting restless.” Rick said ominously. “We don’t have all night so I’ll try and make this quick. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of me. I’m a nice guy, so I’ll let you two die together. Negan, Simon, turn and face each other.”

His prisoners obeyed. Negan and Simon knelt in front of each other. By now both of them had accepted what was about to happen and that there wouldn’t be any happy ending involving killing Rick and enjoying Ezekiel’s garden. The only thing awaiting them was a gruesome death.

“I never thought it’d end like this,” Simon said sadly. 

“Me neither...” Negan didn’t even know what to say. He couldn’t find the words.

“Get closer together. Closer. Come on, get real nice and comfy.” Rick ordered.

Negan and Simon scooted closer together until their knees were touching. Negan didn’t even want to think about what kinds of sadistic atrocities Rick had in mind. 

Rick squatted down next to Negan and roughly gripped the back of his neck. His eyes burned into Negan’s and he violated his personal space yet again.

“Look at me, Negan.”

Negan complied and locked eyes with Rick, but he didn’t give him the look he wanted to see. Instead of terror, Rick saw only bitter, depressed acceptance in his eyes.

Rick, still staring Negan right in the eyes and not breaking contact for even a second, furrowed his brows and cocked his head slightly.

“Carl, stand behind Simon and hold a knife to his throat.” he instructed.

Carl was behind Simon in a flash. Knife in hand, he eagerly awaited the command.

Rick savagely put Negan in a chokehold and shoved his head forwards until his face was mere inches from Simon’s. He was close enough to see the flakes of old dried blood on Carl’s knife, which was held firmly against Simon’s throat.

“You are going to look him straight in the eye as my boy bleeds him out.” Rick whispered to Negan half sadistically, half intimately. “I’m going to make you watch him die.”

“Well shit, Negan. It was good while it lasted. I....I love you Negan.” Simon stammered. His voice cracked a bit on the last word.

At those words, Negan felt like like someone had ripped his heart out and poured hydrochloric acid in the wound. He couldn’t form any words, all he could do was look on in silent wide eyed teary horror.

Rick glanced up at Carl and nodded.

“Kill him. And make it slow.”

Carl gripped Simon by the hair, yanked his head back and lightly sliced the knife across his throat. The cut wasn’t deep enough to kill or even incapacitate, but it began to bleed somewhat heavily immediately. Simon’s eye went wide and he cried out in agony as the knife made a complete circuit all the way around his neck. Many rivulets of blood oozed from the cut and streamed down his neck. The knife traveled around again, slicing slightly deeper this time. On the third pass, the blade nicked his trachea and blood spurted right into Negan’s face.

Negan maniacally thrashed around in Rick’s grip, but it was useless. He tried averting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see his best friend die, but Rick physically forced his eyes open and made him look.

“Watch.” Rick commanded sternly. “Listen to those sounds, look at the horror in his eye.”

Simon’s throat split open and he began to choke as crimson blood flowed from his severed arteries. It splashed in Negan’s face, ran over Carl’s hand, and stained his blue shirt red. Carl traced the knife around again, then again. He was slowly decapitating Simon inch by inch, layer by layer, bit by bit. Soon the gurgling and gasping stopped, Simon’s blood soaked hands fell limp at his sides and the only thing keeping his head attached to his body was his exposed spinal cord. Negan was treated to the horrific sound of metal scraping against bone. With some effort, Carl wedged his knife between two of the bony discs and sliced the delicate nerves inside.

Michonne caught Simon’s head in her hands before it hit the ground. A perverse smile crossed her face as she looked at Negan, who was staring at his dead friend in despair.

Blood and chunks of gore oozed down her arm as she plunged her hand up the dead man’s throat, wearing his head as a deranged hand puppet.

“It’s me, your boyfriend! Give me a kiss Negan!” Michonne cruelly laughed and shoved Simon’s head right into Negan’s face.

Negan howled and tried to cringe away. The most he could do was turn his head slightly as Michonne forcibly held the decapitated head over his mouth and made him make out with it. Of all the nonconsensual things he’d been forced to do today, this was somehow the most repulsive and the conversation Negan had with Simon just an hour ago only made it worse. Being forced to make out with his best friend’s severed head was bad enough, but the psychological aspect is what really fucked with him. Simon had been _in love with him_ and now he was being forced to get intimate with his severed head. That was beyond fucked up. He felt horrendously nauseous and he definitely would’ve vomited if he had anything left in his stomach.

Finally, Michonne took the head away and allowed him to breathe. He was able to inhale a grand total of one time before Rick yanked him to his feet. Rick let go of him, but Glenn and Abraham immediately aimed their guns at him.

Rick sauntered in front of Negan and casually braced himself on Lucille.

“I bet you’d love to kill me right about now. I just ordered the death of the one person you had left in this world. You want me dead, and rightly so.” he began.

Negan narrowed his eyes but said nothing. It was the truth, he did want Rick dead. He wanted to line all these assholes up and Lucille them one by one for what they did to him and his people, but that wasn’t ever going to happen. He was at his lowest low, more vulnerable and weak than he’d ever been in his life. Worse still, he was alone. Every single person he’d ever known was dead. He had _nobody._

“You might not think so, but I’m a reasonable guy. If you want to take some aggression out on me, go right ahead.” Rick continued.

He turned Lucille over and offered her handle first to Negan.

“This is the last time you’ll ever get to touch her and I’m only giving you two hits, so you better make them count. Go ahead, hit me right here.” there was a mischievous gleam in Rick’s eye as he knelt down on the ground and pointed to his own head. Some of the other Alexandrians smirked as Negan took Lucille from Rick.

The warning signs were all there. This was obviously a trap, but Negan truly didn’t care. If swinging Lucille down towards Rick’s head was the last thing he ever did, then so be it. Fiery rage consumed him, and all he could think about was avenging his people. Simon, Dwight, Arat, Laura, Gavin, Joey, Regina and all the others were dead because of this sadistic piece of shit and his asshole followers.

Negan was moving before he could even finish that thought, and he swung Lucille down with more ferocity than he’d ever done before.

The sound of Lucille cracking Rick’s head open echoed through the clearing, and Negan was positive it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. It was more beautiful than Lucille’s voice, a baby’s laughter and a classical symphony combined.

Rick was still very much alive, face down on the ground and writhing about. Another hit should finish him off.

Negan no longer cared that he was about to die. As long as he took Rick with him, he wouldn’t have died for nothing.

“FUCK YOU RICK! YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER! HOW DOES THAT FEEL YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!?! HOW DOES THAT FUCKING FEEL?!?!”

Negan shouted at the top of his lungs until his throat stung, but he was so wrapped up in his tirade that he failed to notice the creepy way the rest of the Alexandrians were looking at him.

He smashed Lucille down on Rick’s head again, but before he could lift her up for round three, a gun was bashed against the back of his own head and he staggered.

“Drop it, numbnuts. Two hits only!” Abraham barked at him. 

Glenn pried Lucille from Negan’s grip and swung her into the back of his right knee, flooring him.

Rick’s hands suddenly shot forwards and firmly seized Negan by the wrists.

He slowly sat up and revealed his grotesque new face. One of his eyeballs was hanging out of its socket, and the top right section of his blood drenched head had caved in and cracked open, revealing torn skin layers, sharp skull fragments and pieces of brain. It was a wound that should have been fatal. It should have killed him, but it didn’t.

_How the fuck was he still alive?_

A maniacal smile spread across Rick’s bloody face and he started laughing hysterically as he gripped onto Negan even tighter.

“What the shit?!” Negan gaped in shock.

The blood that had been cascading freely down Rick’s face stopped flowing, and wet stretching and snapping sounds were heard as his head started to reshape. His dangling eyeball sucked itself back into its socket with a disgusting pop and his damaged brain began to grotesquely reform. Pieces of his skull shifted around and rejoined. Negan could only stare in dumbstruck terror as gory red strands reached out from the edges of the wound and merged together at the tips to form organic stitches. The open wound rapidly closed and immediately began to heal. The brand new skin where the rift had been smoothed out and curly brown hair sprouted within seconds. Once the healing process was complete, the remaining blood on Rick’s face was the only indicator of what had just happened. He stood up straight and slicked his hair back. He was good as new.

Suddenly it all clicked into place.

“You...you aren’t even human.” Negan said.

“I used to be a lot like you.” Rick began. “When all this started, I was just a man looking for his family. But he died a long time ago and was reborn. We all were.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Negan asked.

“Everyone’s got a story, and I’ll tell you mine. I was on patrol with my partner Shane. He wasn’t just my partner, but my best friend. We responded to a call. Highway shootout. I got shot, went into a coma, and woke up a month later in an empty hospital. Everyone was gone and the dead were walking the earth. It was one hell of a surprise. At first I couldn’t believe it, but there it was staring me in the face. All I cared about was finding my wife and son, and anyone who stood in the way of that was going to lose. The first living person I met was actually Morgan over there.” Rick gestured to where the other man was standing.

“He helped me and explained what was going on. We went our separate ways a couple days later, then I met Glenn and he lead me to the camp in Atlanta. Miraculously they were there. Lori, Carl and Shane. My wife, my son and my best friend. At the time, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It wasn’t safe at the camp and we lost a few people, so we decided to go to the CDC for some answers as to what happened. We made it, but there was only one guy left alive. Everyone else had either left or killed themselves. Dr. Jenner was a real piece of work, but I got some answers out of him. Later on he and I were alone and I told him how grateful I was to be alive. He leaned in close and whispered to me...”

Rick crouched down so he was face to face with Negan and repeated what Dr. Jenner had told him so long ago.

“The day will come where you won’t be.”

A million questions swam through Negan’s mind. He knew he was going to die and he wanted to murder Rick more than anything, yet at the same time he was overcome with curiosity. What had happened to this man? What made him the inhuman monster he was?

“I lost people along the way, including my wife and my best friend. We took others in and formed a tight bond. Look around, Negan. These people are my family, and I’ll do anything to keep them safe. A lot of shit went down between then and now, but we kept going. Things got really rough for a while, and we lost four members of our group, one right after the other. First Bob, then Beth, then Tyreese. Then we lost Noah just days after we reached Alexandria. As much as it hurt, it only brought us closer together. We’ll stick together until the bitter end, because we’re family.”

“Well isn’t that just fucking fantastic? My people were my family, but you killed them all! And for what? For fucking WHAT Rick?!” Negan spat venomously.

Rick’s passive, relaxed expression didn’t change as he continued talking.

“Dr. Jenner was right. That day came. Alexandria got breached by the biggest walker heard any of us had ever seen. There were hundreds of them. We killed them all, but their blood contaminated the land. Our crops and livestock died, and nothing would grow afterwards. The ground became infertile practically overnight. The same thing that happened not only to you, but to the Kingdom and Hilltop as well. We had a bunch of canned goods and non perishables, but they didn’t last long. Daryl’s the best hunter I’ve ever known, but each time he went out, he came back with nothing because all the wildlife was dying. There weren’t any animals out there to kill. Eventually we ran out of food. We had nothing. My people were starving and wasting away, and I knew some of them wouldn’t make it more than a few days. You’d be amazed just how far some people will go to survive, and that’s exactly what we did.”

“The next morning, Carl, Michonne, Daryl and myself set out in a last ditch effort to try and find something, and by some miracle we did. We crossed paths with a father and son who had been wandering for months looking for a place to stay. They were in bad shape and they wanted us to take them back to Alexandria. That wasn’t an option. I hadn’t eaten in nine days, and I was so delirious with hunger that I could barely stand up. My body was consuming itself, and I was desperate for food. If I hadn’t done what I did, I probably wouldn’t have made it another day.”

“What did you do, Rick?” Negan asked cautiously despite already knowing what Rick was about to tell him.

“I shot the man in the head. The boy stood there frozen in terror, and I shot him too. We built a fire, cut a leg off from each corpse and ate them. It’s what we had to do to survive. It’s funny, I was expecting to be horrified and disgusted with myself for eating another human being, but I wasn’t. Right when I took that first bite, I felt better. I felt energetic and rejuvenated, almost like eating another man’s flesh healed me. What I didn’t realize at the time is that it _did_ heal me. That was the day that Rick Grimes died and was reborn as someone better and stronger. All four of us changed, so we took the bodies back to Alexandria so we could feed our people. Daryl hung them up, cleaned them and tossed the skin out back. At first a lot of my people were offended at the idea of eating human flesh, and I can’t blame them for thinking that way, but they came around. And when they did, they changed too. We all changed for the better and discovered a secret along the way.”

Negan didn’t want to know the secret, but Rick informed him anyways.

“Fear. The secret is fear.” Rick grinned toothily as he spoke.

“When I went out to retrieve the boy’s skin the next day, I was shocked to see crops growing in that spot. The rotting blood of the undead kills the soil, but the fresh blood of someone who died scared fertilizes it. Not only that, but people who die terrified taste better. I don’t know what it is, but nothing else can compare. The whole kidnapping you, raping you and killing your people in front of you thing? It wasn’t anything personal, I just needed you scared. Being scared and traumatized will make you taste better. I know for a fact that your friend over there is going to taste really good.”

Simon’s head was still on Michonne’s hand like a fleshy sock puppet, and she nibbled on his esophagus before offering Carl a taste. 

“He tastes amazing! Rick, you really aught to have a bite. Want his other eye?” Michonne licked the blood from her teeth as Carl chomped a piece of flesh off Simon’s neck.

“Fucking stop!” Negan shouted. His voice cracked and he sounded like he could cry at any second, but it was from distaste and anger, not fear.

“Ooh, touchy subject huh? Don’t worry Negan. His death, along with yours, won’t be for nothing. You see, while we need to consume human flesh to survive, it’s not the only thing we eat. We use the blood to fertilize the soil so we can grow crops and raise livestock. But every so often we all get an insatiable craving for human flesh that we have to satisfy. We’ll die if we ignore the cravings. Your flesh isn’t something we merely want, it’s something we need. You will die so we can live.”

Rick stroked the side of Negan’s face in a sensual yet hostile manner.

“It’s that time, Negan. We have to feed.” saliva dripped from Rick’s mouth as he eyed Negan hungrily.

Negan wasn’t afraid anymore. He never thought his life would end like this, being slaughtered and served up as the main course for a clan of inhuman cannibals. And yet, he was strangely at peace with his impending death. It was freeing in a macabre sort of way. He didn’t have to live in this fucked up post apocalyptic shit sack of a world anymore.

However the one thing he refused to give Rick was satisfaction. He wouldn’t go out whimpering and crying like Rick wanted him to.

Rick was poised in front of him, heavily salivating and ready to attack with a crazed look in his blazing blue eyes.

Negan leaned forward and stared right into his eyes before speaking his last words.

“Fuck you, Rick! I hope you choke on me. I’m not scared of you. Not anymore.” he said with malice.

Rick’s deranged grin grew wider and his long tongue slid over his sharpening teeth.

“You will be. Besides....I already made you a promise.”

Rick pounced and went for the kill. The circle of Alexandrians watched with ravenous hunger as their leader brutalized his victim.

Negan’s agonized screams of pain met their ears and the forest floor ran red with his blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Negan is dead. Originally I was going to go into excruciating detail about his agonizing death. Specifically, Rick was going to shatter Negan's injured knee, savagely tear one of his arms off, pulverize his throat with Lucille and finally saw his head off for good measure.
> 
> However, I decided it would be far creepier and more unsettling to give him a brutal but off screen death. That way, you have to imagine what Rick does to Negan. It's kind of a choose your own death type deal.
> 
>  
> 
> The idea for Rick and his people healing and physically changing from engaging in cannibalism was inspired by the game Until Dawn and the movie Ravenous.
> 
>  
> 
> There's only one chapter left after this. It's dinner time in Alexandria, and Rick Grimes doesn't break his promises. When he says he's going to eat Negan's flesh, he's going to do it.


End file.
